FROM BEND TO BURNS 65 



of the time for the freight in their care ! Moving 

 among the crowded cans in the lurching, plung- 

 ing car, they were dipping with one hand, hold- 

 ing hard with the numbed fingers of the other, 

 the desert wind piercing them and, at midnight, 

 freezing their fingers to the metal, and coating 

 them with ice as the water slopped and splashed 

 upon their clothes. And this in July ! 



It was a cruel haul. But it is the Western way; 

 and it is all in the day's work. 



At six o'clock the next morning, Sunday, we 

 scanned the sagebrush to the west for a sign of 

 the coming car. There was no cloud of dust on 

 the horizon. None at eight o'clock. None at ten. 

 Noon came and went. Little groups of men 

 gathered at the corners of the street or wandered 

 in to talk with us at the " hotel." Buckboards 

 and automobiles from distant ranches were wait- 

 ing at the garage to take a can, or two cans, up 

 and down the river twenty, thirty, forty miles 

 away, when the truck should get in. The street 

 was full of people — picturesque people, pure 

 Americans all of them — "riders," homesteaders, 

 ranchers, townspeople, waiting for the fish-car. 

 The local baseball nines announced a game ; the 



