Page:West of Dodge (1926).pdf/313

 perity it had nurtured in the days when business was young and uncertain there. Mrs. Charles and her daughters waved from the kitchen door until the train whipped out upon the main line, shutting them from sight.

"Well, they're gone," she said.

"Yes, they're gone."

They started back across the track to the boxcar office, going slowly.

"You'll have nothing to stay for now, of course," she said, not conclusively, but with a tinge of upbraiding to her words.

"Oh, I don't know," he returned flippantly, looking at her with a side-long grin. "What are your designs on the future, if you'll let me ask? Judge Waters tells me the county wants to buy the site where your house stands, to build a union high school."

"Yes. Mother thinks it's the best monument father could have—they'll call it the Cottrell High School—and I agree to it. Is Old Doc Ross gone? I noticed they've moved his office a hundred feet or so from where it used to stand, and are digging a foundation for a building or something there."

"Yes, Ross has gone to Oklahoma. He had his eye on it for some time, he told me. We got to be pretty close friends, after all our bad start."

"You did?"

"Nice old chap when you got to know him—that is, kind of nice in some ways. He hitched up to his fits wagon one evening and drove away. I was rather sorry to see him go."

"Has another doctor taken his place? I didn't see any name on his office."