"It is as Wright said; the desert grows warm at once, so soon as the morning sun strikes it," said Harding. "Heavens, how awful a desolation. It is as though the face-cloth had been lifted from a dead world." "Do you remember what Wright told us, about the appalling stillness of this region?" asked Ashley. "One can realize a little of it by looking out. Were the train not here what would there be for sound to act upon?" "Is it not pitiful," said Harding, "to think of a grand life like Wright's being worn out as his was? He met the terrors here when but a boy. From that time on there was but blow after blow of this merciless world's buffetings until the struggle closed in a violent and untimely death." "You forget," said Ashley, "that a self-contained soul and royal heart like his, are their own comforters. He had joys that the selfish men of this world never know." All that day the conversation was only awakened at intervals and then was not long continued. Not only the sorrow in their hearts was claiming their thoughts and imposing the silence which real sorrow covets; but the swift changes wrought in the week just passed, had really resulted in an entire revolution in all their thoughts and plans. It was to them an epoch. The breakfast station came, later the dinner, later the supper station. All the day the train swept on up the Humboldt valley. Along the river bottom were meadows, but about the only change in the monotonous scenery, was from desert plains to desert mountains and back again to the plains. Night came down in Eastern Nevada. When they awoke next morning the train was skirting the northwest shore of Great Salt Lake and the rising sun was painting the splendors that, with lavish extravagance, the dawn always pictures there on clear days, and no spot has more clear days during the year. Ogden was reached at nine o'clock in the morning, the transfer to the Union Pacific train was made; breakfast eaten, and toward noon, the beauties of Echo Canyon began to unfold. Green River was crossed in the gloaming; in the morning Laramie was passed, at noon Cheyenne, and the train was now on a down grade toward the East. With the next morning men were seen gathering their crops; the desert had been left behind and the travelers were now entering the granary of the Republic. Late that night the train entered Omaha. The usual delay was made; the transfers effected and early next morning the journey across Iowa, so wonderful to one who has been long in the desert, began. Ashley darted from side to side of the coach that he might not lose one bit of the view; but Harding sat still, by the window, hardly moving, but straining his eyes over the low waves of green, which, in the stillness of the summer day, seemed like a sea transfixed.