nes," said Jack. "I've seen them in
Dakota, but this must be their home."

They were immense birds, white and gray, and with very long
legs. Jack took his rifle and tried to creep up on them, but they
were too shy, and soared away to the south.

We soon passed the first station on the railroad, called
Crookston. The telegraph-operator came out and looked at us,
admitted that it was a sandy neighborhood, and went back in. We
toiled on without any incident of note during the whole
afternoon. Toward night we passed another station, called
Georgia, and the man in charge allowed us to fill our kegs from
the water-tank.

[Illustration: First Night Camp in the Sand Hills]

We went on three or four miles and stopped beside the trail, and a
hundred yards from the railroad, for the night. The great drifts of
sand were all around us, and no desert could have been lonelier.
We had a little wood and built a camp-fire. The evening was still
and there was not a sound. Even the Blacksmith's Pet, wandering
about seeking what he could devour, and finding nothing, made
scarcely a sound in the soft sand. The moon was shining, and it
was warm as any summer evening. Jack sat on the ground beside the
wagon and played the banjo for half an hour. After a while we
walked over to the railroad. We could hear a faint rumble, and
concluded that a train was approaching.

"Let's wait for it," proposed Jack. "It will be along in a
moment."

We waited and listened. Then we distinctly heard the whistle
of a locomotive, and the faint roar gradually ceased.

"It's stopped somewhere," I said.

"Don't see what it should stop around here for," said Jack,
"unless to take on a sand-hill crane."

Then we heard it start up, run a short distance, and again
stop; this it repeated half a dozen times, and then after a pause
it settled down to a long steady roar again.

"It isn't possible, is it, that that train has been stopped
at the next station west of here?" I said.

"The next station is Cody, and it's a dozen miles from here,"
answered Jack. "It doesn't seem as if we could hear it so far,
but we'll time it and see."

He looked at his watch and we waited. For a long time the
roar kept up, occasionally dying away as the train probably went
through a deep cut or behind a hill. It gradually increased in
volume, till at last it seemed as if the train must certainly be
within a hundred yards. Still it did not appear, and the sound