Then he looked out across the wide expanse of grass that stretched away in the moonlight to the dim blur of woods on the horizon.

Here and there clumps of willows dotted the waste, but it lay silent and empty, without sign of human life.

The air was pleasantly fresh after heavy rain; and the stillness of the vast prairie was soothing by contrast with the tumult from which they had recently escaped.
Lighting his pipe, George leaned contentedly on the rail.

Then remembering what the Canadian had said, he thought of his old friend Marston, a man of charm and varied talents, whom he had long admired and often rather humbly referred to.

It was hard to understand how Dick had failed in Canada, and harder still to see why he had made his plodding comrade his executor; for George, having seldom had occasion to exert his abilities, had no great belief in them.