“You’ve spotted wrong once,” smiled Rickard, picking up his bag. The engine was backing the made-up train toward the station.
The crowd pushed forward. “No offense, I hope,” called the sun-dried face over the heads of the press. “I’ve done a little of it myself.”
The window seats, Rickard could see, were filled before the cars halted, by the experienced ones who had not waited for the train to be made up. In the scramble, he spied a vacant window on the sunny side, and made for it. Seated, he looked for his talkative friend who was already opening office farther down the car. A stranger dropped into the seat beside him.
Every window in the car was open. Each red-velveted, dusty seat was filled. A strong desert wind was blowing sand into their faces, discoloring the seats and covering the floor.
The engineer turned to his companion who was coughing.
“Do you mind this window being open?”
“I’d mind if it were not. It’s always bad at the Junction. When we get into the cultivated country, you will see what the valley will be like when it is all planted. The wind is not bad when it blows over grain or alfalfa. It is the desert dust that nags one.” He coughed again. “Going in?”
Rickard said he was going in.
“Are you going to settle in the valley?” The inquisitor was a man of about fifty, Rickard decided, with a desert tan of apparent health. His face was clear-cut and intelligent.
“I don’t know.”