"Yes, it certainly _ain't_! What gets me is, why do people live in a
place like this? Are they all crazy?"
The train now was jerking and bumping to a standstill. Sixty yards
away was a little, bluish-gray frame building, by far the most
pretentious of the clutter of shacks, flaunting the legend, "Prairie
City." Beyond the station was the to-be-expected general store and
post-office. A bit farther on a saloon. Beyond that another, and then
straggling at intervals a dozen rough, rambling, one-storied board
houses. For miles in all directions the desert stretched dry and
barren. The faces of women and children peered out of windows, the
forms of roughly garbed men lounged in the doorways of the store and
the saloons. All the denizens of Prairie City manifested a mild
interest in the arrival of Number 1.
"I guess you called the turn," sputtered the fat man. "Here come the
crazy folks now!"
A cloud of dust swirling higher and higher in the still air, the
clatter of hoofs, and two horses swept around the farthest house,
carrying their riders at breakneck speed into the one and only street.
At first Greek took it to be a race, and then he thought it a runaway.
As it was the first interesting incident since Grand Central Station
had dropped out of sight four days ago, he craned his neck to watch.
The two riders were half-way down the street now, a tall bay forging
steadily ahead of a little Mexican mustang until ten feet or more
intervened between the two horses.
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