hesitations
succeeded by fierce forward dashes, after switching this way and that,
they came to a final halt in a jungle of freight cars, a chaos of
mysterious activities, and a dense, hot, steaming atmosphere that
oppressed and sickened the men from the mountains. Lanterns sparkled and
looped and circled, and fierce cries arose. Engines snorted in sullen
labor, charging to and fro, aimlessly it appeared. And all around cattle
were bawling, sheep were pleading for release, and swine lifted their
piercing protests against imprisonment.

"Here we are, in Chicago!" said McCleary, who always entered the city on
that side. "Now, fellers, watch out for yourselves. Keep your hands on
your wallets and don't blow out the electric light."

"Oh, you go to hell," was their jocular reply.

"We're no spring chickens."

"You go up against this town, my boys, and you'll think you're just out
o' the shell."

Mose said nothing. He had the indifferent air of a man who had been
often to the great metropolis and knew exactly what he wished to do.

It was after twelve o'clock when the crowd of noisy cattlemen tramped
into the Drovers' Home, glad of a safe ending of their trip. They were
all boisterous and all of them were liquorous except Harold, who drank
little and remained silent and uncommunicative. He had been most
efficient in all ways and McCleary was grateful and filled with
admiration of him. He had taken him without knowing who he was, merely
because Reynolds requested it, but he now said:

"Hank, you're a jim-dandy; I want you. When you've had your spree here,
you come back with me and I'll do the right thing by ye."

Harold thanked him in offhand phrase and went early to bed.

He had not slept in a hotel bed since the night in Marmion when Jack was
with him, and the wonderful charm and mystery and passion of those two
days, so intimately wrought in with passionate memories of Mary, came
back upon him now, keeping him awake till nearly dawn. He arose late and
yet found only McCleary at breakfast; the other men had remained so long
in the barroom that sleep and drunkenness came together.

After breakfast Harold wandered out into the street. To his left a
hundred towers of dull gray smoke rose, and prodigious buildings set in
empty spaces were like the cliffs of red stone in the Quirino. Beyond,
great roofs thickened in the haze, farther on in that way lay Chicago,
and somewhere in that welter, that tumult, that terror of