ad, terminating at Marion, their postal
station. From Marion, the thirty miles of saddle work, with the added
detour on account of El Desierto, would be all the reporter fancied he
should care for.

"Some day I'll come back to Sobrante, if I'm invited, and get that
famous rider, Samson, to teach me the trick of 'broncho busting' or
some other caper. But now, the engine can't travel fast enough to suit
my impatience."

Nor Jessica, neither, after the first few moments of the journey. She
forgot her fear in watching the swiftly moving landscape, and found it
hard to believe that the landscape itself was still and she who was
carried past it. This time there was none of Aunt Sally's bountiful
luncheon but what seemed to Lady Jess something far finer--a dining
car. To be sure, during their first meal in this, served by colored
waiters whose unfamiliar faces distracted her attention, and swayed by
the motion of the train, the girl's appetite was not worth mentioning;
but by the time the supper hour was reached she was ready to enjoy almost
everything which her companion ordered for her. It delighted him to
observe how swiftly she comprehended and adapted herself to new things,
and in his spirit of "teasing" he laid several harmless "traps" for
her entanglement.

But she had now learned to distinguish his fun from his earnest and,
after one keen glance into his face, would skillfully avoid the little
slips of speech or manner that would have so diverted him.

"No, Mr. Sharp, I'm ever so ignorant of the way city people and
traveling people do, but one thing Ephraim taught me, even on our
quiet way out. That was: 'Use your eyes, not your tongue, and watch
what other folks do.' So, if watching will prevent my doing awkward
things, I'll watch, surely enough."

They were to sleep at Marion, and when they finally left the less
comfortable car of the branch road at that town, it was very dark and no
vehicles were in waiting to convey passengers to the one hotel of the
place. Few persons stopped at Marion, except such as resided there or
near, and such either walked from the station to their homes or had their
own wagons meet them.

Ninian Sharp was disgusted. He was tired, his head ached, and he had
anticipated no such "one horse" village as this. "Why, I thought it
was your post town and all that."

"So it is. And a very pretty place by daylight, save that they don't
irrigate."

"Which means there isn't a spear of grass