Out of the middle of this vast, treeless plain the great stone hotel arose, with no visible excuse or palliation, a deliberate affront to the solitude which lay far and wide about.

Even less within the bounds of reason appeared the wooden building which Franklin learned was the Cottage.

"Surely," thought he, "if the railroad company had been mad in building the stone hotel, much worse must have been the man who erected this rambling wooden structure, hoping for customers who must come a thousand miles." Yet was this latter mad act justified before his very eyes.

The customers had come.

More than forty cow ponies stood in the Cottage corral or in the street near by.