That point which did
not beckon was behind them. Flaxen-haired Swedes and Norwegians; square-
jawed, round-headed North Germans; square-shouldered, loose-jointed
Russians with heavy contemplative eyes and long hair, looked curiously at
each other and nodded understandingly. Jostling them all, with a jeer
and an oblique joke here and there, and crude chaff on each other and
everybody, the settler from the United States asserted himself. He
invariably obtruded himself, with quizzical inquiry, half contempt and
half respect, on the young Englishman, who gazed round with phlegm upon
his fellow adventurers, and made up to the sandy-faced Scot or the
cheerful Irishman with his hat on the back of his head, who showed in the
throng here and there. This was one of the days when the emigrant and
settlers' trains arrived both from the East and from "the States," and
Front Street in Lebanon had, from early morning, been alive with the
children of hope and adventure.
With hands plunged deep in the capacious pockets of his grey jacket,
Ingolby walked on, seeing everything; yet with his mind occupied
intently, too, on the trouble which must be faced before Lebanon and
Manitou would be the reciprocating engines of his policy.
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