CHAPTER XIX
PRESCOTT’S RETURN
It was Saturday evening, clear and cold, though the frost was not intense. A number of the farmers and their wives had driven in to Sebastian to meet their friends and make their weekly purchases. A row of light rigs stood outside the livery-stable, voices and laughter rose from the sidewalks; the town looked cheerful and almost picturesque with its roofs and tall elevator towers cutting against the soft night sky.
A full moon hung above them, but its silvery radiance was paled by other lights. Warm gleams shone out from the store windows upon the hard-trodden snow; a train of lighted cars stood at the station, and the intense white glare of the head-lamp mingled with the beam flung far across the prairie by a freight locomotive on a side-track. Groups of people strolled up and down the low platform, waiting to see the train go out, and their voices rang merrily on the frosty air. From one of the great shadowy elevators there came a whirr of wheels.
When the train rolled away into the wilderness, Muriel Hurst entered the hotel and went upstairs to the parlor where Colston and her sister were sitting. The room was furnished in defective taste, but it was warm and brightly lighted, and the girl had got accustomed to the smell of warm iron diffused by the stove and the odor of burning kerosene. Colston occupied an easy-chair, and when Muriel took off her furs he looked up with a smile, noticing the fine color the nipping air had brought into her face. She looked braced and vigorous, but it struck him that she wore a thoughtful expression.
“Did you buy all you wanted?” he asked.
“I got what I came for.” Muriel sat down and handed her sister a parcel. “I think that ought to match. Has Harry been lounging there since supper? Isn’t he the picture of comfortable laziness?”
Colston laughed. He was still very neatly dressed, but he looked harder than he had when he first reached the prairie and his face was brown.