Presently, however, a big bell commenced to toll, and the jolting of the air-brakes flung her forward in her seat, while in another few moments the long cars stopped, and the conductor pushed his way through the perspiring passengers who surged towards the vestibule.
"They've had a big washout up the track," he said. "You can light out and admire the scenery for two hours, anyway, if you feel like it."
Hetty looked round, but could see nothing of her brother or Ingleby. She had seen very little to admire at other prairie stations; but anything seemed better than the close heat of the car, and when the vestibule was clear at last she went out languidly and stepped down upon the track.
Beside it rose two desolate frame houses, a crude structure of galvanized iron, and a towering water tank, but that was all, and beyond them the gleaming rails ran straight to the rim of the empty wilderness. Nothing moved on its interminable levels; the dingy sky seemed suffused with heat, and along the track a smell that was stronger than the reek of creosote rose from the baked and fissured earth. The withered grass was of the same tint as the earth save where the clay on the bank of a coulée showed a harsh red, and the vast stretch of dusty prairie seemed steeped in the one dreary grey. This, she reflected with a sinking heart, was the land of promise to which she had journeyed five thousand miles to find a home; but, though the track was suggestively littered with empty provision cans, there was as yet very little sign of the milk and honey.
Hetty was usually sympathetic, but the sight of the frowsy passengers and unwashed children wandering aimlessly round the station aroused in her a curious impatience that was tinged with disgust that hot afternoon. She wanted to be alone, and noticing an ugly trestle bridge a mile or so ahead followed the rails until she came to it. A river swirled beneath it; but it, too, was utterly devoid of beauty, for the banks of it were crumbling sun-baked clay, and it swept by a dingy, slatey green, thick with the mud brought down by the Rockies' glaciers. However, it looked cool, and she climbed down until she found a place she could stand on, and laved her arms and face in it. Then, as it happened, a piece of the crumbling clay broke away, and one foot slipped in above the ankle, while the skirt of her thin dress trailed in the water too. It was a trifling mishap, but Hetty was overwrought, and when she had climbed back and taken off and emptied the little shoe she sat down on the dusty grass and sobbed bitterly. She felt insignificant and lonely in that great empty land, and its desolation crushed her spirits.
She did not know how long she sat there, but at last there were footsteps behind her, and she coloured a little and strove to draw the shoeless foot beneath the hem of the dripping skirt when she saw Ingleby smiling down upon her. Then she remembered that the sleeves of the thin blouse were still rolled back, and the crimson grew plainer in her wet cheeks as with a little adroit movement she shook them down. Ingleby smiled again, in a complacent, brotherly fashion which she found strangely exasperating just then, and sitting down beside her took one of her hot hands.
"Crying, Hetty? That will never do," he said.
Hetty glanced at him covertly. His face was compassionate, but there was rather toleration than concern in it, and she pulled her hand away from him.
"I wasn't – at least, not exactly," she said. "And if I was, it was the weather – and why don't you go away?"
Ingleby smiled again, in a manner which while kind enough had yet a lack of comprehension in it that made her still angrier.
"People don't generally cry about the weather," he said.
"Well," said the girl sharply, "some of them say things they shouldn't. I heard you – in a crowded car, too."
She stopped abruptly, as she remembered the scanty privacy of the Colonist train, and that she was supposed to have been asleep about the time Ingleby had allowed his temper to get the better of him. He, however, only laughed.
"Hetty," he said, "what is the matter? I always thought you brave, and I have almost a right to know."
"I think you have," and there was a little flash in Hetty's eyes. "It was you who brought us here, and this is a horrible country. It frightens me."
Ingleby was a trifle perplexed, and showed it. He had known Hetty Leger for four or five years, and had never seen her in a mood of the kind before. It also occurred to him, as it did every now and then, that, although she was not to be compared with Miss Coulthurst, Hetty was in her own way beautiful. Just then a pretty plump arm showed beneath the unfastened sleeve of the thin blouse, and the somewhat dusty hair with the tint of pale gold in it, lying low on the white forehead, matched the soft blue eyes, though there was a hint of more character than is usually associated with her type in Hetty's white and pink face. Ingleby noticed all this with impersonal appreciation, as something which did not greatly concern him.
"Well," he said, "I'm sorry, and by no means sure I'm very much pleased with the country myself; but I don't quite see what else I could have done in the circumstances. Still, it hurts me to see you unhappy."
Hetty turned to him impulsively. "Never mind me. I'm an ungrateful little – beast. That's the fact, and you needn't try to say anything nice – I know I am. If it hadn't been for you Tom would have been in prison now."
Ingleby looked out across the endless dusty levels. "I'm sure the country must be a good deal better than it looks – when one gets used to it," he said a trifle dubiously. "Anyway, we are three to one against it, and needn't be afraid of it while we stick together. That is the one thing we must make up our minds to do."
"There was a time when you didn't seem very sure you wanted Tom and me."
"Didn't you feel that I was right a little while ago?"
Hetty said nothing for a space. She was quick-witted, and not infrequently understood her companion rather better than he understood himself, while recollecting the half-shy delicacy which occasionally characterized him she felt a trifle comforted. It was not, she fancied, to please himself that he had been willing to leave her behind, and she watched him covertly as he, too, sat silent, gazing at the prairie with thoughtful eyes. He was not, she was quite aware, as clever as her brother, and he certainly had his shortcomings – in fact, a good many of them; but for all that there was something about him which, so far as she was concerned, set him apart from any other man. Exactly what it was she persuaded herself that she did not know, or, at least, made a brave attempt to do so, for it was evident that he had only a frank, brotherly regard for her. Still, the silence was getting uncomfortable, and she flung a question at him.
"How much have we left?" she asked.
Ingleby laughed, somewhat ruefully. "Eight dollars, I believe. Still, we shall cross the Rockies to-morrow, and start at once to heap up riches. We are certainly going to do it, as others have; and you will never be frightened any more."
Hetty had a stout heart of her own, but nevertheless she was glad of the reassuring grasp he laid upon her shoulder as she looked out across the muddy river and desolate, grey-white plain. However, she smiled at him, and once more they sat silent until a curious and unexpected thing happened.
Far away on the rim of the prairie there was a stirring of the haze, and a dim smear of pinewoods grew out of the dingy vapour. Then a vista of rolling hills rose to view, and was lost in mist again, until high above them all a great serrated rampart of never-melting snow gleamed ethereally against a strip of blue. It was a brief, bewildering vision, sudden as the shifting of a gorgeous transformation scene, and then the vapours rolled down again; but they felt that they had looked upon an unearthly glory. Hetty turned to her companion with a little gasp.
"Oh," she said, "it was wonderful!"
"It was real, at least," said Ingleby. "Your first glimpse of the country to which I have brought you. I think we shall be happy there – and we will remember afterwards that we saw it together."
Again the little pink tinge crept into Hetty's cheek, but she said nothing, and Ingleby's glance rested on the shoe, which he had not noticed before.
"Hetty," he said severely, "do you want to catch cold? What is that doing there?"
Hetty essayed to draw her foot