She stood watching the moving cloud; the man’s bulk began to detach from it and gathered shape.  Between pauses, the click of the telegraph reached her, then suddenly the shriek of the whistle cut the stillness.  The train must have crossed the Columbia and was winding up through the dunes.  She went along the platform and picked up her hat, which she had left on the suitcase with her coat.  While she pinned it on and tied her veil over it, the freight signalled twice.  It was so close she caught the echo of the thundering trucks from some rocky cut.  When the call sounded a third time, it brought an answer from the silk special, far off in the direction of Ellensburg.  She lifted her coat and turned again to watch Tisdale.  He had quickened his pace, but a shade of suspense subdued the light in her face.

Since the whistle of the special, the telegraph instrument had remained silent, and presently she heard the station master’s step behind her.  “Well,” he said, “it’s Nip and Tuck, sure.  But say, he can sprint some.  Does it easy, too, like one of those cross-country fellows out of a college team.  I’d back him against the freight.”

“If he misses it,” and the suspense crept into her voice, “I must go without him, and I suppose I can be sure of a hotel at Ellensburg?”

“You’ll find fair accommodations at Kittitas.  But he isn’t going to miss the freight, and it will be hours saved to you if Lighter lets you have the colts.”

She lifted her coat, and he held it while she slipped her arms in the sleeves.  “I’ve ’most forgotten how to do this,” he said; “it’s so long since I’ve seen a girl—­or a lady.  I’m afraid I’ve bored you a lot, but you don’t know how I’ve enjoyed it.  It’s been an epoch seeing you in this wilderness.”

“It’s been very interesting to me, I’m sure,” she replied gravely.  “I’ve learned so much.  I wonder if, should I come this way again, I would find all this desert blossoming?”

“I shouldn’t be surprised; settlement’s bound to follow a new railroad.  But say, look into Hesperides Vale while you are at Wenatchee, and if my proposition seems good to you at one hundred dollars an acre, and that is what I’m paying, drop me a line.  My name is Bailey.  Henderson Bailey, Post-Office, Wenatchee, after the end of the month.”

He waited with expectation in his frank brown eyes, but the girl stood obliviously watching Tisdale.  He reached the platform and stopped, breathing deep and full, while he shook the dust from his hat.  “I am sorry, madam,” he said, “but their only saddle-horse pulled his rope-stake this morning and went off with the wild herd.  You will have to take this freight back to Kittitas.”

“How disappointing!” she exclaimed.  “And you were forced to tramp back directly through this heat and dust.”

“This is the lightest soil I ever stepped on”—­he glanced down over his powdered leggings and shoes; the humor broke gently in his face—­“and there’s just one kind deeper,—­the Alaska tundra.”