On summer nights, the window open, he could lie there and hear the hum of the wires, or the click when the semaphore changed from red to green. Then he would roll on his side, put up his head, and watch the Flyer go through. The streaming coaches made a band of yellow light on the plains. It would be a little while before the night was quiet again.
South of the tracks was the cattle loader, strong with the smell of fermenting manure, and down the spur to the west, past the sawmill, the house of a man named Schultz. This man lived alone on a ten-acre farm. In his bedroom, along toward morning, a lamp chimney could be seen smoking, and now and then his shadow moved about the room. This man Schultz was something of an eccentric, and many years before—so it was said—he had loved a city girl with soft white hands. But after one night and day in his house she had run away. Nobody blamed her. No, nobody blamed her for that.
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