"I expect so, too; and I think it's jolly to rough it," chimed in her chum; "but it's hard to get used to it all at once. Stepping right off a Pullman into this is rather a sharp contrast, you must admit."
"It is," agreed Peggy, heartily. She stepped to the window and gazed out on an uncovered porch outside. It was, in fact, the roof of the one below. On it flourished quite a little grove of scraggly plants of various kinds, which were carefully tended by Cash's wife. They were, perhaps, the only green things in Blue Creek.
But Peggy had little eye for all this. Her lips parted in a quick gasp of admiration as she gazed upon the night spell of the desert. The dark sky was sprinkled with countless stars, large and luminous and beaming with a softer, stronger light than in the North. A brooding silence hung over the town—the silence of the desert. The hush was broken only by the droning notes of a song, accompanied on a guitar, which came from off in the distance on the outskirts of the little settlement. The music emphasized rather than broke the silence.
Jess came to Peggy's side, and upon her, too, descended the feeling of awe that the "Great Alkali" casts over all who encounter it for the first time.
"Peggy," she said at length, "I'm—I'm the least bit frightened."
Her chum felt a slight shiver run through the girl as she pressed against her.
"Frightened, girlie? Frightened of what?"
"I don't just know. That's what makes it feel so bad. I guess it's the silence, the sense of all that loneliness out beyond there that upsets me. It feels almost as if there were some living presence off over the alkali that meant us harm."
"I think I know what the matter is," said Peggy gently, "you're tired and overwrought. Come, let us get to bed, for Mr. Bell has ordered in early start in the morning."
Just how long afterward it was the awakened Peggy had no means of telling, but as she lay sleepless she felt a longing to look out over the light-shrouded desert once more. Arising she tiptoed to the window, and drawing the shade without making more than the merest rustle of noise she looked out. As she did so Peggy almost uttered a startled exclamation, which, however, she instantly checked.