At Missoula, the following evening, I rushed into the ticket office and shouted, "Where is '54'?"
The clerk knew me and smilingly extended his hand.
"How de do? She has just pulled out. The horse is all OK. We gave him fresh water and feed."
I thanked him and returned to my train.
Reaching Livingston in the early morning I was forced to wait nearly all day for the train. This was no hardship, however, for it enabled me to return once more to the plain. All the old familiar presences were there. The splendid sweep of brown, smooth hills, the glory of clear sky, the crisp exhilarating air, appealed to me with great power after my long stay in the cold, green mountains of the north.
I walked out a few miles from the town over the grass brittle and hot, from which the clapping grasshoppers rose in swarms, and dropping down on the point of a mesa I relived again in drowse the joys of other days. It was plain to me that goldseeking in the Rocky Mountains was marvellously simple and easy compared to even the best sections of the Northwest, and the long journey of the Forty-niners was not only incredibly more splendid and dramatic, but had the allurement of a land of eternal summer beyond the final great range. The long trail I had just passed was not only grim and monotonous, but led toward an ever increasing ferocity of cold and darkness to the arctic circle and the silence of death.
When the train came crawling down the pink and purple slopes of the hills at sunset that night, I was ready for my horse. Bridle in hand I raced after the big car while it was being drawn up into the freight yards. As I galloped I held excited controversy with the head brakeman. I asked that the car be sent to the platform. He objected. I insisted and the car was thrown in. I entered, and while Ladrone whinnied glad welcome I knocked out some bars, bridled him, and said, "Come, boy, now for a gambol." He followed me without the slightest hesitation out on the platform and down the steep slope to the ground. There I mounted him without waiting for saddle and away we flew.
He was gay as a bird. His neck arched and his eyes and ears were quick as squirrels. We galloped down to the Yellowstone River and once more he thrust his dusty nozzle deep into the clear mountain water. Then away he raced until our fifteen minutes were up. I was glad to quit. He was too active for me to enjoy riding without a saddle. Right up to the door of the car he trotted, seeming to understand that his journey was not yet finished. He entered unhesitatingly and took his place. I battened down the bars, nailed the doors into place, filled his tub with cold water, mixed him a bran mash, and once more he rolled away. I sent him on this time, however, with perfect confidence. He was actually getting fat on his prison fare, and was too wise to allow himself to be bruised by the jolting of the cars.
The bystanders seeing a horse travelling in such splendid loneliness asked, "Runnin' horse?" and I (to cover my folly) replied evasively, "He can run a little for good money." This satisfied every one that he was a sprinter and quite explained his private car.
At Bismarck I found myself once more ahead of "54" and waited all day for the horse to appear. As the time of the train drew near I borrowed a huge water pail and tugged a supply of water out beside the track and there sat for three hours, expecting the train each moment. At last it came, but Ladrone was not there. His car was missing. I rushed into the office of the operator: "Where's the horse in '13,238'?" I asked.