The man appeared thoughtful. "Well," he said, "it's quite three months since I spoke to him. He was stirring round as brisk as ever, and is rolling the dollars in this year." "But you used to be always at the Range." The man nodded, but the slight constraint that was upon him did not escape the girl. "Still, I don't go there so often now. The Range is lonesome when you are away." Miss Torrance accepted the speech as one made by a comrade, and perhaps was wrong, but a tramp of feet attracted her attention then, and she looked away from her companion. Driven by the railroad officials, and led by an interpreter, a band of Teutons some five or six hundred strong filed into the station. Stalwart and stolid, tow-haired, with the stamp of acquiescent patience in their homely faces, they came on with the swing, but none of the usual spirit, of drilled men. They asked no questions, but went where they were led, and the foulness of the close-packed steerage seemed to cling about them. For a time the depot rang to the rhythmic tramp of feet, and when, at a sign from the interpreter, it stopped, two bewildered children, frowsy and unwashed, in greasy homespun, sat down and gazed at Miss Torrance with mild blue eyes. She signed to a boy who was passing with a basket slung before him, and made a little impatient gesture when the man slipped his hand into his pocket. "No," she said; "you'll make me vexed with you. Tell him to give them all he has. They'll be a long while in the cars." She handed the boy a silver coin, and while the children sat still, undemonstratively astonished, with the golden fruit about them, the man passed him a bill. "Now get some more oranges, and begin right at the top of the line," he said. "If that doesn't see you through, come back to me for another bill." Hetty Torrance's eyes softened. "Larry," she said, "that was dreadfully good of you. Where are they all going to?" "Chicago, Nebraska, Minnesota, Montana," said the man. "There are the cars coming in. Just out of Castle Garden, and it's because of the city improvements disorganizing traffic they're bringing them this way. They're the advance guard, you see, and there are more of them coming." The tramp of feet commenced again, but this time it was a horde of diverse nationality, Englishmen, Irishmen, Poles, and Finns, but all with the stamp of toil, and many with that of scarcity upon them. Bedraggled, unkempt, dejected, eager with the cunning that comes of adversity, they flowed in, and Hetty Torrance's face grew pitiful as she watched them. "Do they come every week like this and, even in our big country, have we got room for all of them?" she said.