from them is past, now. If the road is beyond Cheyenne, it
must have reached Laramie or nearly so, and they would hang around the
stations, picking up what they can, but the government has them in
hand as never before. They would not dare interfere with white men
anywhere near the road. I've dreamed of a railroad to connect the two
oceans, but never expected to see it in my lifetime. I've taken a
notion to go and see it--just to look at it,--to try to be reconciled
to it."

"Reconciled? It is to like it, you mean--Sir Kildene? Is it not
_won-n-derful_--the achievement?"

"Oh, yes, the achievement, as you say. But other things will follow,
and the plains will no longer keep men at bay. The money grabbers will
pour in, and all the scum of creation will flock toward the setting
sun. Then, too, I shall hate to see the wild animals that have their
own rights killed in unsportsmanlike manner, and annihilated, as they
are wherever men can easily reach them. Men are wasteful and bad. I've
seen things in the wild places of the earth--and in the places where
men flock together in hoards--and where they think they are most
civilized, and the result has been what you see here,--a man living
alone with a horse for companionship, and the voice of the winds and
the falling water to fill his soul. Go to. Go to."

Larry Kildene rose and stood a moment in the cabin door, then
sauntered out in the sun, and off toward the fall. He had need to
think a while alone. His companions knew this necessity was on him,
and said nothing--only looked at each other, and took up the question
of their needs for the winter.

"Mr. 'Arry, is it possible to reach with safety a station? I mean is
time yet to go and return before the snows? Here are no deadly wolves
as in my own country--but is much else to make dangerous the way."

"There must be time or he would not propose it. I don't know about the
snows here."

"I have seen that Sir Kildene drinks with most pleasure the coffee,
but is little left--or not enough for all--to drink it. My mother and
I we drink with more pleasure the tea, and of tea we ourselves have a
little. It is possible also I make of things more palatable if I have
the sugar, but is very little here. I have searched well, the foods
placed here. Is it that Sir Kildene has other places where are such
articles?"

"All he has is in the bins against the wall yonder."

"Here is the key he gave me, and I have look well, but is not en