fast the train was going, by counting the jars at the rail-ends, to see how many to the minute, and counting each rail as thirty feet long, and fifty-two hundred and eighty feet to the mile. It was mighty interesting. And he told me a lot about telegraph poles, and how long they lasted, and how they were putting in cement bases to make them last longer, because they decayed first underground. He had travelled all over the country and knew about every town in it. I asked him what was the very most satisfactory place, in every way, that he had ever found,—that is, where he would settle if he had his choice of every place where he had ever been, and he said Seattle. I was never so surprised in my life, for I had always thought of that town as being so far away from everything,—just about the jumping-off-place. I asked if it was because he liked some one there, and he said no, that it was simply the all-round nicest place that he had ever struck, and suited him down to the ground. I can't understand it yet, for on the map it looks so sort of lonesome and away from us,—but he was mighty certain in his own mind.
After I got home I was so busy for a few days
