ity of unbroken space.

The brakeman came in, lighting the coal-oil lamps. Outside, the twilight
had deepened into dusk. Numerous passengers were making ready for bed: the
men by removing their boots and shoes and coats and galluses and
stretching out; the women by loosening their stays, with significant
clicks and sighs, and laying their heads upon adjacent shoulders or
drooping against seat ends. Babies cried, and were hushed. Final
night-caps were taken, from the prevalent bottles.

The brakeman, returning, paused and inquired right and left on his way
through. He leaned to me.

"You for North Platte?"

"No, sir. Benton, Wyoming Territory."

"Then you'd better move up to the car ahead. This car stops at North
Platte."

"What time do we reach North Platte?"

"Two-thirty in the morning. If you don't want to be waked up, you'd better
change now. You'll find a seat."

At that I gladly followed him out. He indicated a half-empty seat.

"This gentleman gets off a bit farther on; then you'll have the seat to
yourself."

The arrangement was satisfactory, albeit the "gentleman" with whom I
shared appeared, to nose and eyes, rather well soused, as they say; but
fortune had favored me--across the aisle, only a couple of seats beyond, I
glimpsed the top of a golden head, securely low and barricaded in by
luggage.

Without regrets I abandoned my former seat-mate to her disappointment when
she waked at North Platte. This car was the place for me, set apart by the
salient presence of one person among all the others. That, however, is apt
to differentiate city from city, and even land from land.

Eventually I, also, slept--at first by fits and starts concomitant with
railway travel by night, then more soundly when the "gentleman," my
comrade in adventure, had been hauled out and deposited elsewhere. I fully
awakened only at daylight.

The train was rumbling as before. The lamps had been extinguished--the
coach atmosphere was heavy with oil smell and the exhalations of human
beings in all stages of deshabille. But the golden head was there, about
as when last sighted.

Now it stirred, and erected a little. I felt the unseemliness of sitting
and waiting for her to make her toilet, so I hastily staggered to achieve
my own by aid of the water tank, tin basin, roller towel and small
looking-glass at the rear--substituting my personal comb and brush for the
pair hanging there by cords.

The coach was the last in the tr