Arthur Train

“ How vigorous and free the life it offered! If it wasn't for Anna! He wondered if he could stand New York eleven months in the year. Anna would probably want to go to Newport. He loathed Newport.
“What do you do for a living?” suddenly asked the girl
“I pass for a tired business man!” he answered, with a laugh. “I'm supposed to be a stock broker, but the fact is I've a complacent partner who lets me do as I choose. And I choose to play polo most of the time. I put up the money. He puts up the brains. ”

“ Desert verbena in dense masses swarmed up and over the embankment, while golden poppies, more aloof, filled the ditches and nearby arroyos. Rand wished that he could pick some of the flowers. The verbena would be very becoming to Anna.
They slowed down and a brakeman came hurrying through the car. He raised the platform section concealing the steps, dropped to the ground, lantern in hand, and ran on ahead, The train stopped entirely, right in the middle of a huge bed of verbena. Rand stepped down onto the track and hastily began picking. ”

“ Gilford Rand, millionaire stock broker and sportsman, jumped last evening from the Sunset Limited to what is assumed to be instant death, on learning that his entire fortune had been swept away in the failure of the well known Wall street firm of Rand & Krayne. Friends on the train wired of his disappearance in the midst of the desert, and a special was dispatched from Barstow at a late hour to look for his body. ”

“ Stock farming isn't much of a career in the east. Besides, one has a duty to society and to one's family.”
“Yes,” she agreed, readily enough. “Of course one has a duty to one's family! By the way, I wonder if they are worrying about you?” Rand did not think it necessary to explain that Anna was the only living person who by any possibility could qualify as “family,” actual or prospective. ”

“ Do you get left that way often?” Without waiting for his answer she returned the pistol to her belt, cranked the flivver, got in, and turned on the lights again.
“Climb aboard.”
Rand did so, wondering what she looked like. The girl threw in her gears and they moved off. “How did you know my name?” he asked, peering at her.
“I've seen you playing polo. Every girl in Santa Barbara knows you by sight.”
“And may I ask to whom I owe my rescue?”
“My name is Isabella Sands,” she answered. “My father has a ranch out beyond the San Marcos. I coach at the high school in the winter.” ”

“ The ground's warm,” she answered with evident amusement “Don't take me for a society girl. I'm not. I'm just one of the hoi polloi.” They were yelling at each other against the noise of the wind which bombarded the windshield with sand. Rand admired her control of the wheel, which she never lost, despite ruts, boulders and cavities. They entered a narrow canyon. Suddenly the girl threw on both brakes and the car stopped with a jerk. ”

“ We——” But she had already leaped from the car.
“Had your supper?” she shouted, making a funnel of her hands. “I haven't.” Her suggestion seemed to him utterly fantastic. “There's firewood in the flivver,” she explained. “And a canteen of water. I always carry both. With wood and water you can go anywhere.”
"Wood and water!” An hour ago his accommodations upon the train had seemed mediocre enough. He had shared Anna's amimadversions upon the shabbiness of the woodwork and upholstery, the bad taste of the decorations, the lumpiness of the mattresses, the inferiority of the food. ”

“ The embankment is covered with them.”
“Funny, how they grow right out of the sand!” he ventured, striving to resurrect some faint recollection of who Assurbanipal might be. “You wouldn't think they'd find enough nourishment there.”
“They're effective only in the mass!” she rejoined. “individual wild flowers are coarse, compared with cultivated ones. Beauty needs nurture, and the right soil, properly prepared. ”

“ First we must lie down and roll ourselves in the rug with our heads to the wind, and then pull the envelope down over our shoulders. It's just as good as a dog-tent—is one, in fact. One thing more, though! ”

“ He kicked a hole in the mudbank on one side of the arroyo, turned up his coat collar, and collected a small bundle of dead greasewood twigs. Luckily he had matches, although his cigarette case was mostly empty. ”