thought was done.

"The kid looks confident, but his applying for a job is something of a
joke," Kemp remarked. "I'd put his value at fifty cents a day."

Lister agreed, and looked up the dusty street. The fronts of the small
frame houses were cracked by the sun, and some were carried up to hide
the roof and give the building a fictitious height. A Clover-leaf wagon
stood in front of a store, the wheels crusted by dry mud, and the team
fidgeted amidst a swarm of flies. Except for one or two railroad hands
waiting by the caboose of a freight train, nobody was about. The town
looked strangely dreary.

Yet Lister knew it stood for all the relief from labor in the stinging
alkali dust one could get. One could loaf in a hard chair in front of
the hotel, lose a dollar or two at the shabby pool-room, or go to a
movie show and see pictures of frankly ridiculous Western melodrama. In
the real West, the pictures were ridiculous, because romantic
shootings-up did not happen. In fact, unless a stubborn labor dispute
began, nothing broke the dull monotony of toilsome effort. Romance had
vanished with the buffaloes. Lister admitted that he had not long felt
the monotony. The trouble began when he stopped at Winnipeg.

"I think I'll go up the street," he said.

A rough plank sidewalk ran in front of the houses, and Lister imagined
it was needed when the spring thaw and summer thunder-storms softened
the gumbo soil. Opposite the Occidental he stopped, for Duveen occupied
a chair on the veranda. While Lister hesitated Duveen beckoned him to
come up.

"It's hot and dusty. Will you take a drink?" he said.

Lister refused with thanks and wondered whether Ruth was at the hotel.
In a way, he would like to see her, but admitted that perhaps he had
better not. When he asked if she was well Duveen said she had gone to
Quebec, and gave Lister a cigar.

"It looks as if you had left the railroad," he remarked.

"I have not left yet," said Lister cautiously.

"Then, you won't go unless you get a better job? Did you know I had
joined the Irrigation Board?"

Lister said he did not know, and got embarrassed when Duveen gave him a
thoughtful glance. He wondered whether Ruth had talked to Duveen before
she hinted he might get a better post.

"Perhaps I ought not to have come up. In fact, I hesitated--"

Duveen laughed. "So I remarked! You reckoned the Occidental stoop was
pretty public and your talking to me might imply that you wanted my