d farming regions, dotted with prosperous
towns. He moved still with the rolling wheels over a country which
showed only here and there the smoke of a rancher's home. Not even yet
did the daring flight of the railway cease. It came into a land wide,
unbounded, apparently untracked by man, and seemingly set beyond the
limit of man's wanderings. Far out in the heart of this great gray
wilderness lay the track-end of this railroad pushing across the
continent. When Franklin descended from the rude train he needed no one
to tell him he had come to Ellisville. He was at the limit, the edge,
the boundary! "Well, friend," said the fireman, who was oiling the
engine as he passed, and who grinned amiably as he spoke, "you're sure at
the front now."

Franklin had not advised his friend Battersleigh of his intended arrival,
but as he looked about him he saw that he had little need for any guide.

Ellisville as an actual town did not yet exist. A rude shanty or two and
a line of tents indicated the course of a coming street. The two hotels
mentioned by Battersleigh were easily recognised, and indeed not to be
evaded. Out of the middle of this vast, treeless plain the great stone
hotel arose, with no visible excuse or palliation, a deliberate affront
to the solitude which lay far and wide about. Even less within the
bounds of reason appeared the wooden building which Franklin learned was
the Cottage. "Surely," thought he, "if the railroad company had been mad
in building the stone hotel, much worse must have been the man who
erected this rambling wooden structure, hoping for customers who must
come a thousand miles." Yet was this latter mad act justified before his
very eyes. The customers had come. More than forty cow ponies stood in
the Cottage corral or in the street near by. Afar there swelled the
sound of morning revelries.

Franklin wanted breakfast, and instinctively turned toward the stone
hotel at the depot, where he learned were quartered the engineers and
contractors on the railroad work. He seated himself at one of the many
tables in the vast, barren dining room. Half the attendants were haughty
young women, and half rather slovenly young men.

Franklin fell under the care of one of the latter, who greeted him with
something of the affection of an old acquaintance. Coming to the side of
his chair, and throwing an arm carelessly across Franklin's shoulder, the
waiter asked in a confidential tone of v