. At one of
them the cowboy whom he had seen at the store was already eating with
two of his companions. Conniston and Hapgood were shown to the other
table by the stout Mary. Hapgood cast one glance at the stew and
coarse-looking bread put before him, and pushed his plate away.
Conniston, who had had fewer high-balls and more fresh air, actually
enjoyed his meal. The men at the other table glanced across at them
once and seemed to take no further interest.

Hapgood waited, bored and conventional, until Conniston had finished,
and then the two went back into the bar-room. The sun had gone down,
leaving in the west flaring banners of brilliant, changing colors. The
heat of the day had gone with the setting of the sun, a little lost,
wandering breeze springing up and telling of the fresh coolness of the
coming night. And it was still day, a day softened into a gray
twilight which hung like a misty veil over the desert.

From the card-room came the voices of the proprietor and the men with
whom he was still playing. They had not stopped for their supper,
would not think of eating for hours to come.

"If you feel like excitement--" began Conniston, jerking his head in
the direction of the card-room.

Hapgood interrupted shortly. "No, thanks. I've got a magazine in my
suit-case. I suppose I'll sit up reading it until morning, for I
certainly am not going to crawl into that cursed bed! And in the
morning--"

"Well? In the morning?"

"Thank God there's a train due then!"

Conniston left him and went out into the twilight. He passed by the
store, by the saloon, along the short, dusty street, and out into the
dry fields beyond. He followed the road for perhaps a half-mile and
then turned away to a little mound of earth rising gently from the
flatness about it. And there he threw himself upon the ground and let
his eyes wander to the south and the faint, dark line which showed him
where the hills were being drawn into the embrace of the night
shadows.

The utter loneliness of this barren world rested heavy upon his
gregarious spirit. Sitting with his back to Indian Creek, he could see
no moving, living thing in all the monotony of wide-reaching
landscape. He was enjoying a new sensation, feeling vague, restless
thoughts surge up within him which were so vague, so elusive as to be
hardly grasped. At first it was only the loneliness, the isolation and
desolation of the thing which appalled him. Then slowly into that
fee