The Plains had become a vast and fetid swamp, the atmosphere a weltering, steamy heat, charged with fever, leaden with despair.
But Puck was like a singing bird in the heart of the wilderness.

She lived apart in a paradise of her own, and even the colonel had to relent again and bestow his grim smile upon her.
"Merryon's a lucky devil," he said, and everyone in the mess agreed with him.
But, "You wait!" said Macfarlane, the doctor, with gloomy emphasis.
"There's more to come." It was on a night of awful darkness that he uttered this prophecy, and his hearers were in too overwhelming a state of depression to debate the matter.
Merryon's bungalow was actually the only one in the station in which happiness reigned.

They were sitting together in his den smoking a great many cigarettes, listening to the perpetual patter of the rain on the roof and the drip, drip, drip of it from gutter to veranda, superbly content and "completely weather-proof," as Puck expressed it.
"I hope none of the boys will turn up to-night," she said.

"We haven't room for more than two, have we ?" "Oh, someone is sure to come," responded Merryon.

"They'll be getting bored directly, and come along here for coffee." "There's someone there now," said Puck, cocking her head.