ent upstairs to a very scantily furnished, doubled-bedded room.
George, warned by previous experience, glanced around.

"There's soap and a towel, anyway; but I don't see any water," he
remarked. "I'll take the jar; they'll have a rain-tank somewhere
about."

Edgar did not answer him. He was looking out of the open window, and
now that there was little to obstruct his view, the prospect interested
him. It had been a wet spring, and round the vast half-circle he
commanded the prairie ran back to the horizon, brightly green, until
its strong coloring gave place in the distance to soft neutral tones.
It was blotched with crimson flowers; in the marshy spots there were
streaks of purple; broad squares of darker wheat checkered the sweep of
grass, and dwarf woods straggled across it in broken lines. In one
place was the gleam of a little lake. Over it all there hung a sky of
dazzling blue, across which great rounded cloud-masses rolled.

Edgar looked around as George came in with the water.

"That's great!" he exclaimed, indicating the prairie; and then, turning
toward the wooden town, he added: "What a frightful mess man can make
of pretty things! Still, I've no doubt the people who built the Butte
are proud of it."

"If you talk to them in that style, you'll soon discover their
opinion," George laughed; "but I don't think it would be wise."

Soon afterward a bell rang for supper, and going down to a big room,
they found seats at a table which had several other occupants. Two of
them, who appeared to be railroad-hands, were simply dressed in
trousers and slate-colored shirts, and when they rested their elbows on
the tablecloth, they left grimy smears. George thought the third man
of the party, who was neatly attired, must be the station-agent; the
fourth was unmistakably a newly-arrived Englishman. As soon as they
were seated, a very smart young woman came up and rattled off the names
of various unfamiliar dishes.

"I think I'll have a steak; I know what that is," Edgar told her.

She withdrew, and presently surrounded him with an array of little
plates, at which he glanced dubiously before he attacked the thin, hard
steak with a nickeled knife which failed to make a mark on it. When he
made a more determined effort, it slid away from him, sweeping some
greasy fried potatoes off his plate, and he grew hot under the stern
gaze of the girl, who reappeared with some coffee he had not ordered.

"Perhaps you