“There's plenty of room in the loft down there,” the woman replied; “but somehow I hate to see nice-looking young men like you put in a place like that.” “It will do very well,” Fred assured her. “In fact, we would rather like it.” “Well, a little later, if you decide to stay, I may fix you a place in the house,” the woman said; “but you got in too late to-night.” “I'm dead tired and sleepy, Fred,” Dick said, when they had left the table. “Let's turn in.” Directed by Mrs. Womack, they went down to the barn, and from the big cattle-room on the ground they climbed a ladder to the loft above. A startled hen flew from her nest with a loud cackling as they crawled through the hay and husks and leaves of corn to a square, shutterless door, through which the hay was loaded to wagons below. They threw off their coats and vests, and made pillows of them; then took off their shoes, and lay down and stretched out their tired limbs. Through the doorway they saw the fathomless sky filled with mysterious stars. The chirping of some chickens, as they jostled one another on the roost below, came up to them; the champing of the teeth of a horse, as he gnawed his wooden trough; the snarling of a tree-frog; the far-off and dismal howling of a dog, and--they were asleep. CHAPTER XVI |IT was not till early autumn that the two friends reached their far-off destination. Fred's watch had been sold; they had saved the greater part of their earnings from the various odd jobs at which they had worked, and had made of their journey by rail. It was Walton's idea that they must put their best foot to the front in Gate City, and start out with a good appearance in their new home, and so the most of their funds were promptly invested in new clothing. Notwithstanding their spick-and-span appearance, however, luck seemed against them, for every application they made for work--Dick as a telegraph operator and Fred as an accountant--was refused them. The city was a bustling new place with prosperity and activity in its very air. There were great railway-shops, factories of several kinds, and various other enterprises. It was a typical Western “boom” town. Its buildings were modern, its streets regular and well-paved. Men and women, as they drove through the streets in their carriages, thought nothing of it if a mounted horde of yelling cow-boys galloped past with their revolvers playfully flourished, nor saw anything unusual in the gangs of blanket-draped Indians who hung about the bar-rooms, dance-halls, or gambling-houses. The new-comers liked the place; Dick believed they would eventually secure work, and Fred had the first sense of security which had come to him since leaving Stafford. Here, under his new name, in this remote place, he was sure he would meet with no familiar face, nor catch any discordant echoes of the life he had left behind him, and which he was trying to banish from his memory.