"You are heated," continued Marie, looking at him, "you have walked a long way. Where in all this desolate, desolate country could you find flowers such as these?"
"Back a little way in a cañon."
"Are there many in a desert like this?"
"I know of none—at least within many miles—yet there may be others in nearby hiding-places. The desert is full of surprises."
"You are so warm, are you not coming up to sit down while I get a bowl?"
"I will go forward, thank you, and see when we are to get away. Your sister," he added, looking evenly at Marie as Gertrude stood beside her, "asked this morning why there were no flowers in this country, and while we were delayed I happened to recollect that cañon and the sky-eyes."
"I think your stupid man the most interesting we have met since we left home, Gertrude," remarked Marie at her embroidery after dinner.
"I told you he would be," said Mrs. Whitney, suppressing a yawn. Gertrude was playing ping-pong with Doctor Lanning. "But isn't he homely?" she exclaimed, sending a cut ball into the doctor's watch-chain.
Louise returned soon with Allen Harrison from the forward car.
"The programme for the evening is arranged," she announced, "and it's fine. We are to have a big campfire over near that butte—right out under the stars. And Mr. Blood is going to tell a story, and while he's telling it, Mr. Glover—oh, drop your ping-pong, won't you, and listen—has promised to make taffy and we are to pull it—won't that be jolly? and then the coyotes are to howl."