“The Missouri, of course. Didn’t you ever study geography?”
“I beg your pardon,” in humble apology. “Is that,” vaguely, “what they call the Bad Lands?”
Bye looked across at his friend, of a mind to be indignant; then his good-nature triumphed.
“No, it’s not so bad as that,” with a feeble attempt at a pun. He paused to light a cigar, and absent-minded as usual, continued in digression.
“I’ve dangled long enough, old man; too long. I’m going to do something now. I start to-morrow.”
Bob Wilson the skeptic, looked at his friend again critically. Resolutions of reconstruction he had heard before––and later watched their downfall; but this time somehow there was a new element introduced. Perhaps, after all––
“Waiter,” he called, “we’ll trifle with another quart of extra-dry, if you please.”
“To your success,” he added to his companion 70 across the table, when the waiter had returned from his mission.
II
A year passed around, as years have a way of doing, and found Calmar Bye, the city man, metamorphosed indeed. Bronzed, bearded, corduroy-clothed, cigarette-smoking,––for cigars fifty miles from a railroad are a curiosity,––as the seasons are dissimilar, so was he unlike his former inconsequent self. In his every action now was a directness and a purpose of which he had not even a conception in his former existence.