d.

"Ah'm sure, Ah c'dn't say, Miss. Ah s'pecs dey ah. Dis my first trip
out here."

"So it is mine!"

"Mah reg'lar run," continued the porter, insensible to the glories of
the distant sky, "is f'm Chicago to Council Bluffs."

A flagman hurried past. Kate courageously pointed: "Are those the
Rocky Mountains, please?" He halted only to look at her in
astonishment. "Yes'm." But she was bound he should not escape: "How
far are they?" she shot after him. He looked back startled: "'Bout a
hundred miles," he snapped. Plainly there was no enthusiasm among the
train crew over mountains.

When she was forced, reluctant, back into the sleeper, she announced
joyfully to her berth neighbors that the Rocky Mountains were in sight.
One regarded her stupidly, another coldly. Across the aisle the old
lady playing solitaire did not even look up. Kate subsided; but dull
apathy could not rob her of that first wonderful vision of the strange,
far-off region, perhaps to be her home.

Next day, from the car window it was all mountains--at least,
everywhere on the horizon. But the train seemed to thread an
illimitable desert--a poor exchange for the boundless plains, Kate
thought. But she grew to love the very dust of the desert.

The train was due at Sleepy Cat in the late afternoon. It met with
delays and night had fallen when Kate, after giving the porter too much
money, left her car, and suitcase in hand struggled, American fashion,
up the long, dark platform toward the dimly lighted station. Men and
women hastened here and there about her. The changing crews moved
briskly to and from the train. There was abundance of activity, but
none of it concerned Kate and her comfort. And there was no one, she
feared, to meet her.

Reaching the station, she set down her suitcase without a tremor, and
though she had never been more alone, she never felt less lonely. The
eating-house gong beat violently for supper. A woman dragging a little
boy almost fell over Kate's suitcase but did not pause to receive or
tender apology. Men looking almost solemn under broad,
straight-brimmed hats moved in and out of the station, but none of
these saw Kate. Only one man striding past looked at her. He glared.
And as he had but one eye, Kate deemed him, from his expression, a
woman-hater.

Then a fat man under an immense hat, and wearing a very large ring on
one hand, walked with a dapper step out of the telegraph office. He
did