Still, she was traveling abroad for the first time in her young life, and she wanted to see everything there was to see. Thus, she had traveled for more than two whole days, nor had she yet exhausted the resources of Canada's great granary. Indian Head, Moosejaw, Regina, Moosemin, Brandon, all these places, miles and miles apart, had vanished into the dim distance behind her, but still the cloth of golden wheat remained, as she knew it would remain until Winnipeg was reached.
Funds had not permitted her the luxury of a "sleeper," so she had faced the discomforts of long days and longer nights in the ordinary day car. But with her heart set upon a definite purpose such things were no real hardships to Phyllis. Just now her one desire in life was to reach Winnipeg, so nothing else mattered.
It was nearly noon when the conductor of the train entered the car for perhaps the tenth time that morning. Phyllis saw him moving down the aisle, and, from force of habit, got her ticket ready. But the amiable man spared her this time. He hurried along toward her, and, with the sigh of an overworked man, dropped into the seat beside her suit case.
"Guess you'll soon be in Winnipeg, now," he observed, having learned her anxiety to reach her destination some twenty or thirty visits to her before.
Phyllis smiled, and her whole face lit up. The conductor grinned his pleasure at the sight.
"I'm so glad," the girl sighed. "Still, I've had a real pleasant journey," she added quickly. "You folks have been very kind to me."
The man's delight was written all over his face.
"Why, that's good of you. But 'tain't just nothin'. Gals travelin' on their lonesome, it ain't all pie for 'em. We just like to do our best—when they ain't on the grouch."
Phyllis had abandoned her study of the view.
"I haven't been a grouch, have I?" she demanded.