In the mind of the girl, cowboys had always been associated with motion picture theatres, where concourses of circus riders in impossible regalia performed impossible feats of horsemanship in the unravelling of impossible plots.  She had never thought of them as real—­or, if she had, it was as a vanished race, like the Aztec and the buffalo.

But here were real cowboys in the flesh:  Open-throated, bronzed man, free and unrestrained as the air they breathed—­men whose very appearance called to mind boundless open spaces, purple sage, blue mountains, and herds of bellowing cattle.  Here were men bound by no petty and meaningless conventions—­men the very sight of whom served to stimulate and intensify the longing to see for herself the land beyond the valley rims—­to slip into a saddle and ride, and ride, and ride—­to feel the beat of the rain against her face, and the whip of the wind, and the burning rays of the sun, and at night to lie under the winking stars and listen to the howl of the coyotes.

“Disgusting rowdies!” wheezed the fat woman as, dishevelled and perspiring, she waddled toward the steps of her coach; while the Mayor, his Adam’s apple fairly pumping importance, led a sturdy band of thirsters recruited from among the train passengers across the flat toward a building over the door of which was fixed a pair of horns of prodigious spread.  Lest some pilgrim of erring judgment should mistake the horns for short ones, or misapprehend the nature of the business conducted within, the white false front of the building proclaimed in letters of black a foot high:  LONG HORN SALOON.  While beneath the legend was depicted a fat, vermilion clad cowboy mounted upon a tarantula-bodied, ass-eared horse of pink, in the act of hurling a cable-like rope which by some prodigy of dexterity was made to describe three double-bows and a latigo knot before its loop managed to poise in mid-air above the head of a rabbit-sized baby-blue steer whose horns exceeded in length the pair of Texas monstrosities that graced the doorway.

“We’re goin’ to back onto the sidin’ now,” announced the conductor, “where dinner will be served in the dinin’ car as ushool.”

The cowboys had moved along to view the wreck and were grouped about the broken end of the trestle where they lolled in their saddles, some with a leg thrown carelessly about the horn and others lying back over the cantle, while the horses which a few moments before had dashed across the common at top speed now stood with lowered heads and drooping ears, dreaming cayuse dreams.

The engine bell was ringing monotonously and the whistle sounded three short blasts, while the passengers clambered up the steps of the coaches or backed away from the track.

“Let’s walk to the side track, it’s only a little way.”

Alice pointed to where the flagman stood beside the open switch.  Endicott nodded acquiescence and as he turned to follow, the girl’s handkerchief dropped from her hand and, before it touched the ground, was caught by a gust of wind that swept beneath the coaches and whirled out onto the flat where it lay, a tiny square of white against the trampled buffalo grass.