Scott Burton on the Range

Scott Burton leaned eagerly forward and searched the scenery which rolled steadily past the Pullman window. The other occupants of the car, worn out with the long journey and surfeited with scenery, centered their attention on their books or tried to sleep away the weary miles. They had seen it all, or at least too much of it. But to Scott Burton it was a new country and to him a new country was of more absorbing interest than anything else.

Born in a little Massachusetts town, he had lived a stay at home life with the single exception of his trip to a college in the Middle West. But even then, before he had any idea that he would ever really have a chance to travel, it was always the tales of strange lands that fascinated him. He had been looking out of that car window for three solid days just as intently as he was looking now and there was not a bump on the landscape which failed to interest him. He had laid over one night in St. Louis that he might not miss anything by night travel, and another one in Pueblo. And still he stared at the country with almost unwinking eye.

A kindly old gentleman who had been watching him for some time, and whose curiosity was piqued by the boy’s unusual alertness, dropped into the seat beside him and opened a conversation.

“Pardon me,” he said. “Tell me if I annoy you, but it hurts my eyes to read on the train, I have seen the country no end of times and I can’t sleep in the daytime. That leaves me nothing to do but watch my neighbors; and I have been watching you till I could not keep down my curiosity any longer.”

Scott was glad to have some one to talk to and he liked the old man’s manner. Moreover, he felt rather curious to know what had made the other man curious.

“I suppose I am rather curious looking,” Scott laughed.

“No, no,” protested the old gentleman, “that is a very good pun, but it is not at all what I meant.”

“I did not mean it either,” said Scott, “I shall be very glad of your company, especially if you have seen the country so often.”

“Well,” said the old gentleman, hastening to satisfy his curiosity, “I have been watching you stare out of that window for almost a whole day now, and I simply could not wait any longer to learn what you were hunting for.”

“I am afraid it will be horribly disappointing to you,” Scott smiled, “but I am only looking at the country.”

“Looking at the country,” the old man echoed, “all day long.” He seemed not only disappointed but also a little incredulous.

“Why, yes,” Scott said, “you see it is all new to me.”

“I don’t see what there is in this country that a man would want to look at for a whole day,” the old man insisted.

“But I have never seen a mountain before,” Scott answered, “and right over there is the Great Divide. I have always been crazy to see a mountain.”

“They are a grand sight,” said the old gentleman. “Those old peaks up there are like brothers to me. Yes, they must look pretty fine to a stranger. They look pretty good to me when I have been away for a while. Mountains are a good deal like home folks, you don’t think much about them when you are with them all the time, but when you go away you are crazy to get back to them.”

“You live here then?” Scott asked politely.

“Live here,” exclaimed the old man indignantly, “wouldn’t live anywhere else. I reckon I have been living here longer than most anything else except those old mountains there. Why, I used to start out at the Mexican border with a herd of cattle every spring and graze ’em right north to Montana in time for the fall market. Right straight through we drove ’em and never seen a settler the whole summer. I knew every water hole from the Big Bend to Miles City.”