I hired him to take us out to camp. But
before we climb aboard, take a look at this view."
Obediently, they paused and gazed at the surrounding country. In the
foreground was a wide dirt street at the rear of the station. For the
equivalent of the length of a city block it was lined on both sides
with wooden structures one-story in height, but with the false fronts
of the frontier country pretending to second stories--a front wall
sticking above the roof and with the semblance of windows painted on
it. A dry goods store, a Chinese laundry, an alleged hotel, several
restaurants, several ex-saloons still carrying on some kind of
business--these comprised the lot. At one end the street ran abruptly
into the desert. At the other was a cluster of old freight cars made
into dwellings, with Mexican men, women and children loitering in
front in the sun. This was Ransome.
"Not much of a town," said Jack, "just a trading post for a wide
stretch of this country around here. But look at the setting, will
you?" And he swept a hand in a wide gesture indicating the horizon.
On every hand stretched the desert, broken by clumps of mesquite and
cactus with the only trees in the landscape the thick belt of
cottonwoods lining the banks of a stream that rose in the mountains to
the north and ran by the town.
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