“It’s called Butte.  I’m located in that district.”

“Then I wonder if you knew an Englishman named Marston?” George interposed.

“I certainly did; he died last winter.  Oughtn’t to have come out farming; he hadn’t the grip.”

George felt surprised.  He had always admired Marston, who had excelled in whatever he took in hand.  It was strange and disconcerting to hear him disparaged.

“Will you tell me what you mean by that?” he asked.

“Why, yes.  I’ve nothing against the man.  I liked him—­guess everybody did—­but the contract he was up against was too big for him.  Had his first crop frozen, and lost his nerve and judgment after that—­the man who gets ahead here must have the grit to stand up against a few bad seasons.  Marston acted foolishly; wasted his money buying machines and teams he could have done without, and then let up when he saw it wouldn’t pay him to use them right off; but that was part his wife’s fault.  She drove him pretty hard—­though, in some ways, I guess he needed it.”

George frowned.  Sylvia, he admitted, was ambitious, and she might have put a little pressure upon Marston now and then; but that she should have urged him on toward ruin in her eagerness to get rich was incredible.

“I think you must be mistaken about his wife,” he remarked.

“Well,” drawled the Canadian, “I’m not always right.”

Then a bell tolled outside, an official shouted the names of towns, and there was a sudden stir and murmur of voices in the great waiting-room.  Men seized their bags and bundles, women dragged sleepy children to their feet, and a crowd began to press about the outlet.

“Guess that’s our train.  She’s going to be pretty full,” said the Canadian.

The party joined a stream of hurrying passengers, and regretted their haste when they were violently driven through the door and into a railed-off space on the platform, where shouting railroad-hands were endeavoring to restrain the surging crowd.  Nobody heeded them; the immigrants’ patience was exhausted, and they had suddenly changed from a dully apathetic multitude waiting in various stages of dejection to a savage mob fired by one determined purpose.  Near by stood a long row of lighted cars, and the immigrants meant to get on board them without loss of time.  There were two gates, guarded by officials who endeavored to discriminate between the holders of first and second class tickets, but the crowd was in no mood to submit to the separation.

It raged behind the barrier, and when one gate was rashly pushed back a little too far, a clamorous, jostling mass of humanity stormed the opening.  Its guardians were flung aside, helpless, and the foremost of the mob poured out upon the platform, while the pressure about the gap grew insupportable.  Women screamed, children were reft away from their mothers, panting men trampled over bags and bundles torn from their owners’ hands, and George and the elderly Canadian struggled determinedly to prevent the girl’s being badly crushed.  Edgar had disappeared, though they once heard his voice, raised in angry protest.