There were three men in the sled; Dan, the mail-carrier, crusty, belligerently Western, the self-elected guardian of every one on his route; Hillas, a younger man, hardly more than a boy, living on his pre-emption claim near the upper reaches of the stage line; the third a stranger from that part of the country vaguely defined as "the East." He was travelling, had given him name as Smith, and was as inquisitive about the country as he was reticent about his business there. Dan plainly disapproved of him.
They had driven the last cold miles in silence when the stage-driver turned to his neighbour. "Letter didn't say anything about coming out in the spring to look over the country, did it?"
Hillas shook his head. "It was like all the rest, Dan. Don't want to build a railroad at all until the country's settled."
"God! Can't they see the other side of it? What it means to the folks already here to wait for it?"
The stranger thrust a suddenly interested profile above the handsome collar of his fur coat. He looked out over the waste of snow.
"You say there's no timber here?"
Dan maintained unfriendly silence and Hillas answered: "Nothing but scrub on the banks of the creeks. Years of prairie fires have burned out the trees, we think."
"Any ores—mines?"
The boy shook his head as he slid farther down in his worn buffalo coat of the plains.
"We're too busy rustling for something to eat first. And you can't develop mines without tools."