APTER II

WHITE POINT

Mr. Moss was the sole employe of the railroad company at White Point
flag station. His official hours were long. They extended round the
dial of the clock twice daily. Curiously enough, his leisure extended
to practically the same limits. The truth was, in summer, anyway, he
had no duties that could seriously claim him. Thus the long summer
days were spent chiefly among his vegetables, and the bits of flowers
at the back of the shanty, which was at once his home and his office,
in short, White Point.

Jack Huntly at Amberley grumbled at the unenlivening conditions of his
existence, but compared with those of Mr. Moss he lived in a perfect
whirlwind of gaiety.

There was no police station at White Point. There were no farms in the
neighborhood. There was not even a half-breed camp, with its
picturesque squalor, to break up the deadly drear of the surrounding
plains. The only human diversion that ever marred the calm serenity of
the neighborhood was the rare visit of some lodge of Indians, straying
from the reservation, some sixty miles to the south, on a hunting
pass.

But if White Point lacked interest from human associations its setting
at least was curiously arresting. Nature's whim was the inspiration
which had brought the station into existence. To the north, south, and
west the prairie stretched away in the distance for untold miles; but
immediately to the east quite another aspect prevailed. Here lay the
reason of White Point station.

Almost from the very foot of the walls of Mr. Moss's shanty the land
rose up with, as it were, a jolt. Great forest-clad hills reared their
torn and barren crests to enormous heights out of the dead level of
the prairie. A tumbled sea of Nature's wreckage lay strewn about
unaccountably, for a distance of something like two miles, east and
west, and double that distance from north to south. It was an oasis of
natural splendor in the heart of a calm sea of green grass.

These strange hills necessitated a watchful eye upon the railroad
track, which pierced their heart, in winter and spring. In summer
there was nothing to exercise the mind of Mr. Moss. But in winter the
track was constantly becoming blocked with snow, while during the
spring thaw there was always the dread of a "wash-out" to disturb his
nightly dreams. At such times these things kept the agent far more
alive than he cared about.

Just now, however, it was the height of summer, and no