The locomotive seemed to tell them that they should not be deceived, that all of this crude setting was a sham and a pretense, and that they had not yet outrun the conveniences of modern life. Dr. Slavens appeared to be getting the upper hand of his melancholy, and to be drawing the comfort from his black pipe that it was designed to give. Next to the sergeant he was the handiest man in the camp, showing by his readiness to turn a full hand at anything, from paring potatoes to making a fire, that he had shifted for himself before that day. The ladies all admired him, as they always admire a man who has a little cloud of the mysterious about him. Mrs. Reed wondered, audibly, in the presence of June and Miss Horton, if he had deserted his wife. The others were full of the excitement of their novel situation, and drunk on the blue skies which strained the sunlight of its mists and motes, pouring it down like a baptismal blessing. Even William Bentley, the toolmaker, romped and raced in the ankle-deep dust like a boy. Sunrise always found the floating population of Comanche setting breakfastward in a clamoring tide. After that, when the land-office opened at nine o'clock, the stream turned toward it, the crowd grew around it, fringing off into the great, empty flat in which it stood--a stretch of naked land so white and gleaming under the sun that it made the eyes ache. There the land-seekers and thrill-hunters kicked up the dust, and got their thousands of clerkly necks burned red, and their thousands of indoor noses peeled, while they discussed the chances of disposing of the high numbers for enough to pay them for the expense of the trip. After noonday the throngs sought the hydrant and the shade of the saloons, and, where finances would permit, the solace of bottled beer. And all day over Comanche the heel-ground dust rose as from the trampling of ten thousand hoofs, and through its tent-set streets the numbers of a strong army passed and repassed, gazing upon its gaudy lures. They had come there to gamble in a big, free lottery, where the only stake was the time spent and the money expended in coming, in which the grand prize was Claim Number One. "It looks to me," said Horace Bentley, the bald lawyer, "like a great many people are going to be bitterly disappointed in this game. More than forty thousand have registered already, and there are three days more before the books close. The government circulars describing the land say there are eight thousand homesteads, all told--six hundred of them suitable for agriculture once they are brought under irrigation, the rest grazing and mineral land. It seems to me that, as far as our expectations go in that direction, we might as well pack up and go home."