Under Handicap | Page 7

of the rickety chairs, brooding, sullen, and silent, smoking cigarettes, drinking high-balls, and cursing the whole God-forsaken West. And there Conniston left him.
In spite of his naturally buoyant spirits, in spite of the fact that he knew he had only to swing upon the next train which came through, Conniston felt suddenly depressed. The silence was a tangible thing almost, and he felt shut out from the world, lost to his kind, marooned upon a bleak, inhospitable island in an ocean of sand. The few men whom he met upon the sun-baked street eyed him with an indifference which was worse than actual hostility. When he spoke they nodded briefly and passed on. It was clear that if he looked upon them as aliens, they looked upon him as a being with whom and whose class they had nothing in common, no desire to have anything in common. For a moment his good nature died down before a flash of anger that these beings, with little, circumscribed existences, should feel and manifest toward him the same degree of contempt that he, a visitor from a higher plane of life, experienced toward them. But in Greek Conniston good humor was a habit, and it returned as he assured himself that what these desert-dwellers felt was worth only his amusement.
At the store he bought some tobacco for his pipe and engaged the storekeeper in trifling conversation. The talk was desultory and for the most part led nowhere. But the little, brown, wizened old man, contemplatively chewing his tobacco like a gentle cow ruminating over her cud, answered what scattering questions Conniston put to him. The young man learned that the town took its name from the stream which crept rather than ran through it to spread out on the thirsty sands a few miles to the north, where it was absorbed by them. That the creek came from the hills to the south, and from the mountains beyond them. When one crossed the brown hills he came to the Half Moon country and into a land of many wide-reaching cattle-ranges.
"I saw a team drive out that way after the train came in," said Conniston, carelessly. "Headed for one of the cattle-ranges, I suppose?"
The old man spat and nodded, wiping his scanty gray beard with his hand.
"That was Joe from the Half Moon. Took the ol' man's girl out."
"I did see a young lady with him. She lives out there?"
"Uh-uh." The old man got up to wait upon a customer, a cowboy, from the loose, shaggy black "chaps," the knotted neck handkerchief, the clanking spurs and heavy, black-handled Colt revolver at his hip. He bought large quantities of smoking-tobacco and brown cigarette-papers, "swapped the news" with the storekeeper, and clanked his way across to the saloon. He did not appear to have seen Conniston.
"The girl's father run a cattle-range out there?"
"Uh-uh. The Half Moon an' three or four smaller ranges. He's old man Crawford--p'r'aps you've heard on him?"
Conniston shook his head, suppressing a smile.
"I don't think I have. Far out to his place?"
"Oh, it ain't bad. Let's see. It's fifty mile to the hills, an' he's about forty mile fu'ther on." He stopped for a brief mental calculation. "That makes it about ninety mile, huh?"
"How does a man get out there? A narrow-gauge running from somewhere along the main line?"
"Darn narrow, stranger. You can walk if you're strong for that kind of exercise. Mos' folks rides. Goin' out?"
"It's rather a long walk," Conniston evaded. And shortly afterward, hearing a clanging bell up the street in the direction of the hotel, he strolled away to his dinner.
He found Hapgood scowling into his high-ball glass and dragged him away to the little dining-room. Both the tables were set. 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