Burke turns in." He opened the way to the store-room,
and the men filed out, all but Burke, who remained to put up the calico
curtain with which his wife had planned to shield her bed.
Blanche was a little disturbed at the prospect of sleeping behind such a
thin barrier.
"Oh, it's no worse than the sleeping-car," her husband argued.
A little later he stuck his head in at the store-room door. "All ready,
Bailey."
Bailey was to sleep on the rickety lounge, which served as bedstead and
chair, and the other men were to make down as best they could in the
grocery.
Bailey went out to the front of the shanty to look at the lantern he had
set up on a scantling. Rivers followed him.
"Going to leave that up there all night?"
"Yes. May keep some poor devil from wandering around all night on the
prairie."
Rivers said, with an abrupt change in his voice:
"Mrs. Burke is a hummer, isn't she? How'd his flat-chested nibs manage
to secure a 'queen' like that? I must get married, Bailey--no use."
Bailey took his friend's declaration more lightly than it deserved.
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