Two blown ponies bore down on the station at a dead run. One of the riders jumped off and ran for the office. The other unstrapped a bundle, apparently mostly slicker, from his companion's saddle cantle. In a moment the first emerged. The energetic Nita had opened the window, and Clyde overheard their conversation.
"I'm shy my grip," said the first. "The agent doesn't know where she is, and I can't wait. Round up Rosebud soon as you can, and find out what's become of it."
The other swore frankly at Rosebud, who appeared to be an individual. "I'll bet he's drunk, somewheres. I'll express your war bag when I find it."
The engine bell clanged a warning, and the conductor shouted cryptically. The two men shook hands.
"So long, Joe," said the younger. "I've had a whale of a time. Come up to my country and see me next year. Come any old time. We'll bust things wide open for you."
The other grinned widely. "The missus ain't lettin' me range like I used to. So long. Keep sober, old-timer. Don't play none with strangers. Say, d'you remember the time when we——"
Clyde lost the remainder in the shudder and grind of the trucks as the coaches began to move. The two men disappeared from her field of vision. Nita closed the window. Once more she leaned back, resigning herself to the weariness of the journey.
But a moment afterward the man of the platform appeared at the end of the aisle, accompanied by the porter who carried his bundle. Instantly he became the cynosure of a battery of disapproving eyes.
For his apparel would have been more in place in the bare colonist cars of the first section than in the vestibuled, luxurious rear coaches of the second. From the battered and stained old pony hat on his head to the disreputable laced boots into which his trousers were shoved, he was covered with the gray dust of the plains. Apart from his costume and the top dressing of dust, he was tall, cleanly built, and evidently as hard as a wire nail. His hair missed red by the merest fraction, and his eyes were a clear blue, level and direct. He moved as lightly as a prowling animal, and he met the supercilious and disdainful glances of his fellow passengers with a half smile of amused comprehension.
The porter, with a deference betokening an unusually large advance tip, ushered him to a seat across the aisle from Clyde's. But the stranger, catching a glimpse of himself in the panel mirror, stopped suddenly. Instantly Clyde's nostrils were assailed by a strong odour of leather and horseflesh. She shuddered in spite of herself. It was the last straw. As a rule she was not overparticular, but just then she was in that state of nerves when little things fretted her. She said to herself that a cattle car was the proper place for this young man. As he spoke to the porter she listened resentfully, prepared to disapprove of anything he might say. Said he: