hin the belt which
promised to thrive, a town where the people had so arranged it that
the coming of a cyclone could be telegraphed to them, where signs like
this were posted, "A cyclone due at three o'clock," and they had ample
time to shut up shop and school and prepare for it, going down into
their cyclone cellars, shutting fast the doors and staying there until
it was over.

True, a cyclone or two had grazed this town.

One had even taken off a wing. But, though a trifle disabled by each,
it had continued to thrive, showing such evident and robust signs of
life and strength that the cyclones, presently giving up in despair of
making a wreck of it, had gone on by as Seth has said they would do
once they found their master.

Then this town had been by way of premium for stanchness and courage
made the capital of this State of tornadoes and whirlwinds.

But this was as far as it went or seemed to intend to go. Further
south and west an attempt or two had been made to plant towns, but
their cellars had not been dug deep enough or their foundations had
not been sufficiently firm, or the cyclones had not yet become
reconciled to the sight of them. At any rate, the cyclones had come
along and swept them away without a word of warning, and they had not
been heard of since, neither cyclone nor town.

And so, altogether, Seth lost heart and came to the conclusion that
his Magic City, if it was ever to be built would be built after his
time and he would never have the happiness of gazing upon it. The hope
of seeing it was all that had kept him in the West. Now that he had
lost it, an uncontrollable longing came over him to go back home, to
see the wife who had deserted him, throw himself at her feet and beg
her forgiveness for his madness which had resulted in their
separation.

From dreaming dreams of the Magic City he took to dreaming dreams of
her.

It was years since he had seen her, but the absent, like the dead,
remain unchanged to us. To him she was the same as when last he saw
her.

How beautiful she had been with her great blue eyes and her hair the
color of Charlie's, tawny, like sunshine! And right, too, in her
scorn of his visions. And how foolish he had been to dream of training
the wind-blown West into a fit place for human beings to inhabit, or
for great cities to be built! It would take a stronger hand than his
to do that, he had come to believe. It would take the hand of God.

He had tried to find