A MEETING IN THE RED DOG Of the good resolutions that Calumet had made since the night before, when he had re-read his father's letter in the moonlight while standing beside the corral fence, none had survived.

Black, vicious thoughts filled his mind as he drove toward Lazette.

When the wagon reached the crest of a slope about a mile out of town, Calumet halted the horses and rolled a cigarette, a sullen look in his eyes, unrelieved by the prospect before him.
By no stretch of the imagination could Lazette be called attractive.
It lay forlorn and dismal at the foot of the slope, its forty or more buildings dingy, unpainted, ugly, scattered along the one street as though waiting for the encompassing desolation to engulf them.

Two serpentine lines of steel, glistening in the sunlight, came from some mysterious distance across the dead level of alkali, touched the edge of town where rose a little red wooden station and a water tank of the same color, and then bent away toward some barren hills, where they vanished.
Calumet proceeded down the slope, halting at the lumber yard, where he left his wagon and orders for the material he wanted.

Across the street from the lumber yard was a building on which was a sign: "The Chance Saloon." Toward this Calumet went after leaving his wagon.