"I seen a little mix-up there myself in the early eighties. Five
cow-punchers, friends they was, had been visitin' town. One feller,
playful-like, takes another feller's quirt--that's a whip. An' the other
feller, playful-like, says, 'Give it back.' Then they tussles for
it, an' rolls on the ground. I was laughin', as was everybody, when,
suddenly, the owner of the quirt thumps his friend. Both cowboys got up,
slow, an' watchin' of each other. Then the first feller, who had started
the play, pulls his gun. He'd hardly flashed it when they all pulls
guns, an' it was some noisy an' smoky. In about five seconds there was
five dead cowpunchers. Killed themselves, as you might say, just for
fun. That's what life was worth in old Dodge." After this story I felt
more kindly disposed ward my travelling companion, and would have
asked for more romances but the conductor came along and engaged him in
conversation. Then my neighbor across the aisle, a young fellow not much
older than myself, asked me to talk to him.

"Why, yes, if you like," I replied, in surprise. He was pale; there were
red spots in his cheeks, and dark lines under his weary eyes.

"You look so strong and eager that it's done me good to watch you," he
explained, with a sad smile. "You see--I'm sick."

I told him I was very sorry, and hoped he would get well soon.

"I ought to have come West sooner," he replied, "but I couldn't get the
money."

He looked up at me and then out of the window at the sun setting
red across the plains. I tried to make him think of something beside
himself, but I made a mess of it. The meeting with him was a shock to
me. Long after dark, when I had stretched out for the night, I kept
thinking of him and contrasting what I had to look forward to with his
dismal future. Somehow it did not seem fair, and I could not get rid of
the idea that I was selfish.

Next day I had my first sight of real mountains. And the Pennsylvania
hills, that all my life had appeared so high, dwindled to nothing. At
Trinidad, where we stopped for breakfast, I walked out on the platform
sniffing at the keen thin air. When we crossed the Raton Mountains
into New Mexico the sick boy got off at the first station, and I waved
good-bye to him as the train pulled out. Then the mountains and the
funny little adobe huts and the Pueblo Indians along the line made me
forget everything else.

The big man with the heavy watch-chain was still on the train, and after