oy, I think nothing except that I liked your company and that I owed
you a service. Good night."

Neale walked to his lodgings tired and thoughtful and moody. Behind him
the roar lulled and swelled. It was three o'clock in the morning. He
wondered when these night-hawks slept. He wondered where Larry was. As
for himself, he found slumber not easily gained. Dawn was lighting the
east when he at last fell asleep.

16

Neale slept until late the next day and awoke with the pang that a new
day always gave him now. He arose slowly, gloomily, with the hateful
consciousness that he had nothing to do. He had wanted to be alone, and
now loneliness was bad for him.

"If I were half a man I'd get out of here, quick!" he muttered, in
scorn. And he thought of the broken Englishman, serene and at ease,
settled with himself. And he thought of the girl Ruby who had flung the
taunt at him. Not for a long time would he forget that. Certainly this
abandoned girl was not a coward. She was lost, but she was magnificent.

"I guess I'll leave Benton," he soliloquized. But the place, the
wildness, fascinated him. "No! I guess I'll stay."

It angered him that he was ashamed of himself. He was a victim of many
moods, and underneath every one of them was the steady ache, the dull
pain, the pang in his breast, deep in the bone.

As he left his lodgings he heard the whistle of a train. The scene down
the street was similar to the one which had greeted him the day before,
only the dust was not blowing so thickly. He went into a hotel for his
meal and fared better, watching the hurry and scurry of men. After he
had finished he strolled toward the station.

Benton had two trains each day now. This one, just in, was long and
loaded to its utmost capacity. Neale noticed an Indian arrow sticking
fast over a window of one of the coaches. There were flat cars loaded
with sections of houses, and box-cars full of furniture. Benton was
growing every day. At least a thousand persons got off that train,
adding to the dusty, jostling melee.

Suddenly Neale came face to face with Larry King.

"Red!" he yelled, and made at the cowboy.

"I'm shore glad to see you," drawled Larry. "What 'n hell busted loose
round heah?"

Neale drew Larry out of the crowd. He carried a small pack done up in a
canvas covering.

"Red, your face looks like home to a man in a strange land," declared
Neale. "Where are your horses?"

Larry looked less at his ease.