MYSTERY Awaiting events did not seem a very thrilling occupation.

Of course, there was always John Big Moose's tutoring to fill in the gaps, but that was less thrilling than just waiting, if possible.

The teaching took place in the big living-room of the ranch house, a room with a great stone fireplace, the stone for which had been carted down from the mountains; with walls decorated with Indian trophies--tomahawks, bows and arrows, stone pipes and hatchets, knives--and with beadwork, snowshoes, and many other interesting things.

All these were enough to take a fellow's mind off his lessons, and besides there was the floor, with its bear and moose and panther skins, each with its history.
And outside, viewed through the big windows, was the rolling prairie, with the touch of early fall on it, sometimes revealed in a light curtain of haze, at which a fellow could gaze and imagine he saw the squaws of the savage tribes gathering the maize for the coming winter's store, while the braves rode off to hunt the buffalo.
Yes, it was rather distracting, but John Big Moose was very patient about the lessons, though he had been eager for knowledge himself.

He had worked his way through a Western college, spurred on by the hope of bettering his people, the Dakotas, and he _had_ bettered them.