the water of the canon he had but to go downward to the plain.

CHAPTER XIX

THE EAGLE ADVENTURES INTO STRANGE LANDS

It can not be said that the Black Eagle of the Rocky Mountains
approached civilization in any heroic disguise. At its best,
accompanying a cattle train is not epic in its largeness. To prod cattle
by means of a long pole, to pull out smothered sheep, are not in
themselves degrading deeds, but they are not picturesque in quality.
They smell of the shambles, not of the hills.

Day by day the train slid down the shining threads of track like a long
string of rectangular green and brown and yellow beads. The caboose was
filled with cattlemen and their assistants, who smoked, talked politics,
told stories, and slept at all hours of the day, whenever a spare
segment of bench offered. Those who were awake saw everything and
commented on everything in sight. To some the main questions were when
and where they were to get dinner or secure a drink. The train, being a
"through freight," ran almost as steadily as a passenger train, and the
thirsty souls became quite depressed or savage at times by lack of
opportunities to "wet their whistles."

Mose was singularly silent, for he was reliving his boyish life on the
plains and noting the changes which had taken place. The towns had grown
gray with the bleach of the weather. Farms had multiplied and fences cut
the range into pasture lands. As the mountains sank beneath the level
horizon line his heart sank with them. Every hour of travel to the East
was to him dangerous, disheartening. On the second day he was ready to
leap from the caboose and wave it good-by; but he did not--he merely sat
on the back platform and watched the track. He felt as if he were in one
of those aerial buckets which descend like eagles from the mines in the
Marshall Basin; the engine appeared to proceed eastward of its own
weight, impossible to check or turn back.

The uncertainty of finding Mary in the millions of the city weakened his
resolution, but as he was aboard, and as the train slid while he
pondered, descending, remorselessly, he determined to "stay with it" as
he would with a bucking broncho.

Kansas City with its big depot sheds filled with clangor and swarming
with emigrants gave him a foretaste of Chicago. Two of his companions
proceeded to get drunk and became so offensive that he was forced to
cuff them into quiet. This depressed him also--he had no other defense