stop; this it repeated half a dozen times, and then after a pause
it settled down to a long steady roar again.

"It isn't possible, is it, that that train has been stopped
at the next station west of here?" I said.

"The next station is Cody, and it's a dozen miles from here,"
answered Jack. "It doesn't seem as if we could hear it so far,
but we'll time it and see."

He looked at his watch and we waited. For a long time the
roar kept up, occasionally dying away as the train probably went
through a deep cut or behind a hill. It gradually increased in
volume, till at last it seemed as if the train must certainly be
within a hundred yards. Still it did not appear, and the sound
grew louder and louder. But at the end of thirty-five minutes it
came around the curve in sight and thundered by, a long freight
train, and making more noise, it seemed, that any train ever made
before.

"That's where it was!" exclaimed Jack--"at Cody, twelve
miles from here; and we first heard it I don't know how far
beyond. If I ever go into the telephone business I'll keep away
from the Sand Hills. A man here ought to be able to hold a
pleasant chat with a neighbor two miles off, and by speaking up
loud ask the postmaster ten miles away if there is any mail for
him."

We were off ploughing through the sand again early the next
morning. We could not give the horses quite all the water they