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By ANNA FULLER

A Literary Courtship: Under the Auspices ofPike's Peak. 28th thousand. 16° $1. 25

A Venetian June. Illustrated. 15th thousand. 16° $1. 25

Peak and Prairie: From a Colorado Sketch-Book. Illustrated. 7th thousand. 16°New Edition. 12° $1. 50

Pratt Portraits: Sketched in a New EnglandSuburb. Illustrated, 12th thousand. 12° $1. 50

One of the Pilgrims. A Bank Story. 6ththousand. 12° $1. 25

Katherine Day. 8th thousand. 12° $1. 50

A Bookful of Girls. 4th thousand. Illustrated. 12° $1. 50

Later Pratt Portraits. Illustrated $1. 50 net

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[Illustration: "THE PEAK WAS SUPERB THAT MORNING, BIG AND STRONG ANDGLITTERING WITH SNOW. "]

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PEAK AND PRAIRIE

From a Colorado Sketch Book

ByANNA FULLER

Author of "A Literary Courtship""Pratt Portraits, " Etc. 

Illustrated byEmma G. Moore

New York and LondonG. P. Putnam's Sons

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Copyright, 1894BYANNA FULLER

The Knickerbocker Press, New York

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TO ONETO WHOM I OWECOLORADOAND MUCH BESIDESTHIS BOOK IS INSCRIBED

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PREFACE. 

The sketches of Colorado life which make up this volume are little morethan hints and suggestions caught from time to time by a single observerin a comparatively narrow field of observation. Narrow as the field is, however, it offers a somewhat unusual diversity of scene; for that mostcharming of health resorts known in these pages as Springtown, is thechance centre of many varying interests. In its immediate vicinityexists the life of the prairie ranch on the one hand and that of themining-camp on the other; while dominating all as it were--town, prairie, and mountain fastness--rises the great Peak which has now forso many years been the goal of pilgrimage to men and women from theEastern States in pursuit of health, of fortune, or of the free, open-air life of the prairie. If, from acquaintance with thesefictitious characters set in a very real environment, the reader be ledto form some slight impression of the stirring little drama which isgoing forward to-day in that pleasant Land of Promise, he will haveincidentally endorsed the claim of these disconnected sketches to beregarded as a single picture. 

May, 1894. 

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CONTENTS

CHAPTER PAGE

PREFACE vI. --A PILGRIM IN THE FAR WEST 1II. --BRIAN BORU 36III. --JAKE STANWOOD'S GAL 60IV. --AT THE KEITH RANCH 101V. --THE RUMPETY CASE 123VI. --THE LAME GULCH PROFESSOR 151VII. --THE BOSS OF THE WHEEL 187VIII. --MR. FETHERBEE'S ADVENTURE 217IX. --AN AMATEUR GAMBLE 240X. --A ROCKY MOUNTAIN SHIPWRECK 266XI. --A STROKE IN THE GAME 301XII. --THE BLIZZARD PICNIC 335XIII. --A GOLDEN VISTA 369

Note. --Of the thirteen sketches included in this volume six havepreviously appeared in periodicals, as follows:

_A Pilgrim in the Far West_ in _Harper's Weekly_; _Brian Boru_ in_Worthington's Magazine_; _Jake Stanwood's Gal_ and _At the Keith Ranch_in _The Century Magazine_; _The Rumpety Case_ in _Lippincott'sMagazine_; and _An Amateur Gamble_ in _Scribner's Magazine_. They were, however, all prepared with reference to their final use as a consecutiveseries. 

A. F. 

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ILLUSTRATIONS. 

 PAGE

"The Peak was Superb that Morning, Big andStrong and Glittering with Snow" _Frontispiece_

"A Handful of Cottonwood Trees Clustered aboutthe House" 24

"The Vast Sea of the Prairie" 46

"Between his Cabin Door and 'The Range'Stretched Twenty Miles of Arid Prairie" 60

The Keith Ranch 104

"A Half-Hearted Stream Known as 'The Creek'" 122

"The Great Dome of Snow Towered in All its Grandeur" 142

"A Town of Rude Frame Huts had Sprung up inthe Hollow below" 156

"On the Edge of a Dead Forest" 212

"It's a Kind of Double Back-Action Slant we'veGot to Tackle this Time" 228

Pine Bluff 258

"They Looked out at the Peak" 289

"The Brook, Which Came Dashing Down From TheCañon, Still Rioting on Its Way" 324

"The Ranch Gate, Which Had Swung Half To OnIts Hinges" 360

"The Wild and Beautiful Gorge" 378

A Golden Vista 388

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PEAK AND PRAIRIE

I. 

A PILGRIM IN THE FAR WEST. 

The Peak was superb that morning, big and strong, and glittering withsnow. Little Mrs. Nancy Tarbell turned, after shutting and locking thedoor of her cottage, and looked down the street, at the end of which thefriendly giant stood out against a clear blue sky. The cottonwood treeson either side of the road were just coming into leaf, and theirextended branches framed in her mighty neighbor in a most becomingmanner. The water in the irrigating ditch beneath the trees was runningmerrily. The sound of it brought a wistful look into the cheerful oldface. It made Mrs. Nancy think of the gay little brook in the pasturebehind the house at home--at home, in far New England. 

Surely it must have been a strange wind of destiny that wafted thisunadventurous little woman across half a continent to the very foot ofthe Rocky Mountains--a long and weary journey for the young andvigorous. Yet it was something no stranger than a mother's love for heronly child. For "Willie's" sake the widow Tarbell had turned her backupon the dear New England woods and meadows, upon the tidy village whereevery man and woman was her friend; for his sake she had come to dwellamong strangers in a strange and barren land. The old homestead had beensold, and with the meagre proceeds she had paid their way across theprairies, and had bought a little house and a lot of land on theoutskirts of Springtown, while Willie looked about him for something todo. But the enemy before whom they had fled followed them to the highpure altitude it loves not, and before poor Willie had found anything todo, he had been "called up higher. " This was the phrase the ministerused at Willie's funeral, and it had been peculiarly comforting to thebereaved mother. She had known well that her boy needed higher air, forthat she had come to live six thousand feet above the level of the NewEngland pastures. But the Lord saw that she, with her poor humanwisdom, could not lead him to the needed height, and He had called himup higher yet, where are blessing and healing forever. With this abidingconsolation in her heart, Willie's mother could face the shining Peakday after day and month after month with a countenance as brave andcheerful as his own. It was only when she listened to the sound ofrunning waters, or some other voice of the past, that the wistful lookcame into her face. 

Meanwhile it was good life-giving air that she breathed, and good warmsunshine that rested upon her, as she stepped briskly on her way. Herlittle cottage was no longer on the outskirts of the town. Statelymansions had risen up about her, and a long procession of houses nowstretched far up to the northward. The people idly looking forth fromthe windows of the stately mansions, did not realize how much a part ofthe landscape the little black figure had become, passing and repassingtheir doors. A small meek figure it was, with little indication of thebright spirit within. It was her "best dress" of ten years ago that shenow "wore common. " The folds of the skirt, cut in the fashion of aby-gone day, offered ample accommodation for bustle and steels, and inthe absence of these props the gown had a collapsed, inconsequent air. But little Mrs. Nancy had never seen her own back, and she wore the gownwith a pleased consciousness of being well dressed. Then there was thethin cashmere shoulder cape, with the long slimpsy fringe, which Willie, in his pride and fondness, had persuaded her to buy, and which had acuriously jaunty and inapt appearance on the narrow shoulders. The closeblack felt bonnet was rusty and of antiquated shape. And since few everthought of looking within these prosaic externals to note the delicacyof the soft old cheek, and the sweet innocence of the faded blue eyesbeneath the thin gray locks, it is perhaps no wonder that the dwellersin the stately mansions quite overlooked their modest little neighbor. 

Mrs. Nancy was expecting to bring back her marketing in the flat twinebag she carried, and she was also thinking of calling at the milliner'sand inquiring the cost of having her old black straw bonnet pressed overand retrimmed. She held her purse tightly between her fingers, encasedin loose black cotton gloves, as she tried to estimate the sum of suchan unwonted outlay. Her means were very, very slender, yet she could notbear that Willie's mother should look too shabby. 

And was that all? Who knows but that the spring instinct of renewal andrejuvenation played a part in her resolve quite independent of theperennial thought of Willie? The drama of life does not cease even inthe most unobtrusive consciousness. It was going on in little Mrs. Nancy's brain at every step of her morning walk. As the shriek of alocomotive rent the air, a bright smile suddenly crossed her face. Herthoughts had taken a different and more inspiring turn. 

"Who knows, " she said to herself. "Maybe that is the very engine thatwill take me home some day--when Atchison begins to pay again. "

The noisy engines had always a reassuring sound to her ears. She wouldsometimes lie in bed listening with rapture to their discordant cries. They were the willing servants that would one day carry her eastward, miles upon miles, hours upon hours--eastward to the old home, withinsmell of the salt air, where there were familiar faces to welcome her, familiar voices to speak of Willie. 

The people here, the few she knew, were very kind, but they seemed tohave forgotten Willie, and she was shy of speaking of him. But all thehome folks would flock to meet her, and to hear of his last brave hours. How glad they would be to know that he had lacked nothing! Atchison hadgiven them all they needed while Willie was alive. She blessed Heavenfor that. 

She had arrived in the business part of the town, where wagons andfoot-passengers thronged at this hour of the morning. She willingly letthem divert her thoughts. She liked the bustle and hurry of the scene. The well-dressed men and women in their trim turnouts little guessedwhat pleasure their high-stepping horses and silver-mounted harnessesgave to the modest little woman threading her way among the people onthe sidewalk. 

Suddenly Mrs. Nancy's pleased survey of the scene was interrupted. Glancing down a side street, she beheld a sight which made her heartbeat hard. A big, rough-looking man was striding along the sidewalk, dragging at the end of a long pole a frightened white dog. The dog waspulling back with might and main, scarcely using its unwilling legs inits enforced progress over the ground. What could it mean? Was the dogmad? He looked harmless enough. They were only a few rods off, and Mrs. Nancy soon overtook them. The dog proved to be a small white collie, and as she came up with him he gave her an appealing look out of hisgreat brown eyes, which filled her with compassion and indignation. 

"What are you doing with that dog?" she demanded, in a peremptory toneof voice quite out of keeping with the rusty black bonnet. 

"Doin'?" repeated the man, somewhat surprised. "I'm takin' him to theCity Hall. "

"What for?"

"He ain't got no license on. "

"And what are you going to do with him when you get him there?"

"_I_ ain't goin' to do nothin' more with him. "

"Will they put a license on him?"

"Not much! He won't need no license after to-morrow morning. " The man'sgrin seemed perfectly diabolical. 

"You don't mean they'll kill him?"

"I reckon that's about the size of it. "

"But suppose the owner would rather pay the license?" she urged. 

"Then he'd better step round lively and pay it. There ain't no time tolose. The law was on the 1st of May, and the owner'd ought to haveattended to it before now. "

The unutterable tragedy of the situation was heightened by the needlesshumiliation and terror of the victim, and once again Mrs. Nancyprotested. 

"What makes you drag him at the end of that pole?"

"I ain't goin' to give him a chance at my breeches, not if I knowsmyself, " replied the man, defiantly. 

"He wouldn't hurt your pantaloons. See how gentle he is!" and the littlewoman pulled off her glove to pat the pretty white head. As the gratefulcreature licked her hand she felt a thrill of new pity and tenderness. By this time they were at the City Hall. "What do you have to pay for alicense?" she asked. 

"Two good solid dollars, " said the man. "I never seen a dog yet that wasworth that money, did you?" And dog and persecutor disappeared togetherwithin a sinister-looking basement door. 

Mrs. Nancy Tarbell stood for a moment irresolute, and then she slowlywended her way along the sidewalk, pondering the thing she had seen. Twodollars! That was a large sum of money in these hard times. Could shepossibly spare it? She did not know yet what her tax bill would be, butfor some unexplained reason it turned out to be larger every year. Shesupposed it was owing to the improvements they were making in the town, and she had too much self-respect to protest. But it was really gettingto be a serious matter. 

In her perplexity and absorption the little lady had turned eastward, and presently she found herself close upon a railroad track over which afreight train was slowly passing. It was the Atchison road, and shewatched with interest the long, slow train. 

"They appear to be doing a good business, " she said to herself. "Seemsas though they might make out to pay something or other. "

When the train had passed she stepped across the track, looking withinterest at the well-laid rails and the solid ties. "Queer, isn't it?"she thought. "Now I own six thousand dollars worth of that track, andyet I can't squeeze out of it enough to pay a poor little dog'slicense. "

She never could think without a feeling of awe of the magnitude of thesum left her by her thrifty husband, the bulk of which sum wasrepresented by those unfruitful certificates. She stooped and felt therails, looking cautiously up and down the road to be sure no train wascoming. After all, it was consoling to think that that good honest steeland timber was partly her property. It was not her first visit to thespot. 

"Queer, isn't it, " she reflected, as she had often done before, "thatthere isn't any way that I can think of to make my own road take mehome? Anyhow I'll buy that license _just to spite 'em_, " she exclaimed, with sudden decision; and shaking the dust of Atchison from her feet, and the far more bewildering dust of financial perplexities from hermind, she walked quickly back to the town. 

It took a certain amount of resolution to turn the handle of thesinister-looking door, and the group of men lounging in thesmoking-room, and turning upon her inquisitive glances as she entered, might even then have daunted her, had not her eye fallen upon a dejectedbunch of whitish hair in one corner. 

As she stepped into the room, a white tail disengaged itself from theround hairy bundle, and began pathetically to beat the floor, while twovery beautiful and beseeching eyes were fixed upon her face. Had shestill been irresolute this mute appeal would have been irresistible, andsuddenly feeling as bold as a lion she stepped up to the desk where thecity marshal was throned, and demanded a license for the white dog. Thetwo great silver dollars which she drew from her purse looked very largeto the widow Tarbell, yet it was with a feeling of exultation that shepaid them as ransom for the white dog. In return for the money shereceived a small, round piece of metal with a hole bored through it, bearing a certain mystic legend which was to act as a talisman to thewearer. Her name and address were duly entered on the books. Then heragitated little beneficiary was untied from the chair leg, the ropewhich bound him was put into her hands, and with a polite courtesy Mrs. Tarbell turned to go. 

By a sudden impulse one of the rough-looking men got up from his chair, and, taking his hat off, opened the door. A light flush crossed thelittle woman's cheek as she accepted the attention, and then the twosmall figures, the black and the white, passed out into the deliciousColorado sunshine. 

"She looked 'most too small to handle that big door, " said the tallfellow, apologetically, as he re-established his wide sombrero on theback of his head, and, resuming his seat, tilted his chair once moreagainst the wall. The other men smoked on in silence. No one feltinclined to chaff this shamefaced Bayard. Mrs. Tarbell, meanwhile, ledher willing captive along, delighting in his cheerful aspect andexpressive tail. He was dirty, to be sure, and he was presumably hungry. Who could tell what hardships he had suffered before falling into thebrutal hands of the law? She stopped to buy her dinner, to which sheadded five cents' worth of dog's-meat, but the milliner's door waspassed coldly by. The old straw would have to serve her another season. 

Before they had gone two blocks, Mrs. Nancy had named the collie David. She had no question whatever about the name, for had he not beendelivered out of the hands of the Philistines? She was patient with himwhen he paused to make the acquaintance of other dogs, and even oncewhen he succeeded in winding the cord tightly about her ankles. Nevertheless it was a relief to get him home, and to tie him to the postof her front porch, where he established himself with entirewillingness, and promptly dropping asleep, forgot alike his perils andhis great escape. 

The first care of his new friend on arriving home was to secure thelicense upon him. He was collarless, and she was a good deal "put to it"to supply the lack. At last she resolved to sacrifice her shawl-strapin the emergency. She might miss it, to be sure, when she came to gohome, but then, she reflected, if she were once on her way home, shewould not care about any little inconvenience. So as soon as she andDavid had had a good dinner, she got down the old strap, which had hungon a certain nail for five long years, and taking a kitchen knife, ruthlessly chopped it off to the right length. Then she bored a new holewith her scissors for the tongue of the buckle to pass through, and, going to Willie's tool box, found a short piece of wire with which--itseemed but the other day--he had been tinkering something about thehouse. With the wire she fastened the license securely to the collar. But before David could be found worthy of such decoration, he wassubjected to a pretty severe bath in an old tub out in the back yard. 

Poor David! This was a novel and painful dispensation, and he submittedonly under protest. But his new mistress was firm, and arrayed in heroldest calico gown, with spectacles on her nose, she applied herself, with the energy and determination of all her New England grandmothers, to the task of scrubbing and soaping and squeezing and combing the dirtout of the long, thick hair. Three tubs of water were barely sufficientfor the process, but finally David emerged, subdued but clean, lookingvery limp and draggled, and so much smaller because of his wet, close-clinging coat, that for a moment Mrs. Nancy thought, with a pang, that she might have washed away a part of the original dog. Later, however, when the sun had dried the fluffy hair, and when she fastenedthe new collar about the neck of the spotless animal, she let him lickher very face, so delighted were they both with the result of herlabors. The rest of the afternoon they passed amicably together on thesunny porch. She would look up occasionally from her sewing, and say, "Good doggy!" and David would immediately wag his tail in delightedresponse. He was extremely mannerly and appreciative of the slightestattention--always excepting his enforced ablutions--and he seemed toapprove of the kind eyes of his little protectress as warmly as sheapproved of his cool leather nose and speaking ears. As often as hemoved, his license, hitting against the collar buckle, made a safe, cheerful sound, and Mrs. Nancy felt quite overcome with joy andgratitude at having been the chosen instrument of his preservation. Whenshe lighted the lamp in the evening and began her regular game ofbackgammon, David curled himself up at her feet in a most companionablemanner, and pricked his ears with interest at the fall of the dice. 

But for her backgammon it would be difficult to imagine what Mrs. Tarbell would have done with her evenings, for her eyes were not strongenough for reading or sewing. She had got the habit of playingbackgammon with Willie, after he became too weak for more activeoccupations, and they had kept the score in a little green blank-book. After he died she had missed the game, and she had found it pleasant totake it up again, and to play for both herself and Willie. The score, too, had been continued in the old book. At the top of each new page shewrote in her precise old-fashioned hand, "Mother, " "Willie, " and underher name all the victories of the "whites" were scored, while those ofthe "blacks" were still recorded to Willie's credit. After a while hereyesight began to fail still more, and it became necessary to lift thedice and examine them "near to. " Then gradually she found that the blackcheckers occasionally eluded her, and that she was straining her eyes inher efforts to see them in the shadowy corners of the board. When atlast she found that by an oversight she had committed a flagrantinjustice to Willie's interests, she felt that something must be done. Being fertile in resource, she presently bethought herself of the brightcolored wafers she had played with in her childhood, and to her joy shefound they were still to be bought. Having possessed herself of a box ofthem, she proceeded to stick a glittering gilt star upon each side ofeach checker, both black and white, after which the checkerboard took ona showy theatrical appearance. 

Mrs. Nancy rarely felt lonely when playing backgammon. The click of thedice sounded cheerful and sociable; the checkers, with their shiningeyes, seemed to take a real interest in the game; and when she scoredthe result to "Willie" or to "Mother, " the old familiar every-dayrelation seemed restored between them. 

To-night Willie was having all the luck, and that was sure to put hismother in the best of spirits. She played on and on, much later than hercustom was, till at last the luck turned, and looking at her flat, gold-faced watch, she found, with a shock, that it was ten minutes afterten o'clock. 

"My sakes!" she cried. "I ought to be ashamed of myself! Come, David, come right along to bed. You're going to sleep on the mat at the backdoor. "

David, who was nothing if not amenable, cheerfully acceded to thisarrangement. Even before his new mistress had finished tying him to therailing, he had curled himself up on the mat and was fast asleep. Whenshe patted him on the head, however, by way of good-night, his tail gavea responsive wag, and little Mrs. Nancy left him with the friendliestfeelings. 

The next morning the dog was gone. Yes, incredible as it seems, thatgraceless dog was gone--gone without a word of farewell. 

Mrs. Nancy was standing gazing in dejected mood at the fragment ofstring he had left behind him, when the milkman, one of her specialcronies, arrived. The good-natured Sam was full of sympathy. 

"I reckon he came in with some ranchman yesterday, and got lost in thetown. Like as not he's gone home. Good Lord! I'd just like to see that'ere ranchman when his dog gits back with a locket round his neck!"

"I washed him too, Sam, " Mrs. Nancy lamented, as she accompanied hervisitor to the gate. She was too conscientious to detain the man fromthe performance of his duty. 

"You washed him!" he cried, as he got into his cart. "Jerusalem! I guessthat's the first time a ranch dog ever got a taste of a bath. "

And the cart rattled off, leaving David's little friend standing at thegate. It was just after sunrise, and she looked down the street to themountains, which were bathed in a flood of translucent crimson reflectedfrom the east. 

"I wonder if the walls of the heavenly Jerusalem look very differentfrom that!" she mused, as she gazed into the deepening color. When sheturned back to the house, she had almost forgotten the ungratefulrunaway in thoughts of her boy and his heavenly abiding place. 

The next afternoon Mrs. Tarbell was sitting on her front porchendeavoring to readjust the bows upon the old straw bonnet. She hadtaken them off, and sponged both ribbon and straw, and she was nowtrying her best to make the bows hold up their heads with the spirit andgrace which distinguish a milliner's trimming. She looked up from timeto time to enjoy the reflection of the trees in the lake surrounding thehouse. For her grass was being flooded to-day, and that was always apretty sight. "It looks almost as pretty as Watkins' pond out on theGoodham turnpike, " she reflected, as the water glistened in a broadexpanse. She owned a good piece of land, a hundred feet front. Williehad meant to have a vegetable garden when he had got strong enough towork in it. 

A horseman had turned into the street, and came cantering toward thehouse. But horsemen were part of the landscape in Colorado, and shescarcely noticed his approach till a joyful bark caused her to look up, just in time to see David take a flying leap over the gate and comedashing up to her. 

"Why, David!" she cried; and then she stopped, abashed, for the horsemanwas already tying his pony to the post. 

"Mrs. Tarbell?" he questioned, as he opened the gate; and withoutwaiting for an answer, he went on: "I've come to thank you for gettingmy dog away from those scoundrels at the City Hall. They had the decencyto tell me where to look for you. "

"Oh, pray don't mention it!" said little Mrs. Nancy, with old-fashionedcourtesy. 

"Not mention it!" cried her visitor. "It was the kindest thing I everheard of. I don't see what made you do it. "

"Oh, I couldn't help it. David looked so miserable being dragged alongat the end of a pole. "

"The cowards!" he cried. "Don't get a chair, ma'am. I like the stepsbetter. Did you call him David?" he asked, with a twinkle of amusementin his kind gray eyes, as he seated himself on the low step, with hislong legs trailing off over the walk. 

"Well, yes. I didn't know what else to call him, and as he'd beendelivered out of the hands of the Philistines----"

"That's a good one!" cried the ranchman. "Come here, David. You've got aname now as well as a locket. Do you hear that?"

David had established himself between his master and his rescuer, andlooked from one to the other with evident satisfaction. They were soonengaged in an amicable conversation, quite unconscious of the picturethey were forming. The tall ranchman, clad in full cowboyparaphernalia, his extended legs encased in leathern "shaps" decoratedwith long fringes, his belt of rattlesnake-skin, his loose shirt showinga triangle of bronzed throat, in his hand the broad sombrero claspedabout with a silver band. 

Little Mrs. Nancy sitting upright in her chair, in her neat old blackgown, holding the forgotten bonnet in her lap, watched her picturesquevisitor with the greatest interest. And looking up into the delicatelittle old face, he noted all the sweetness and brightness which had solong been lost upon the world. To make a clean breast of it, the twofell frankly in love with each other upon the spot, and before thestranger had departed, he had persuaded her to visit his ranch with himthe very next Sunday. 

"But I don't know what to call you, " she said, after having agreed uponthis wild escapade. 

"That's so, " said he. "I go by the name of Wat Warren out here, but theyused to call me Walter at home. I wish you would call me Walter. "

"It's a pretty name, " she said. "I thought some of calling my boy Walterat first. "

Warren was on the point of departure, and a sudden embarrassment seemedto seize him. He had his hand in his trousers' pocket. "I 'most forgotthe money for the license, " he stammered, as he pulled out a couple ofsilver dollars. 

Nobody knows what came over Mrs. Nancy, but she suddenly found she couldnot take the money. 

"Oh, that's of no consequence, " she said, quite as though she had had ather command the whole treasury surplus of a few years ago. "I shouldlike to make David a present of the license;" and as her two visitorsdeparted at full gallop, she sat down in a flutter of pleasurableexcitement. 

How surprising it all was! She looked back upon the last hour quiteincredulous. She felt as though she had known this strange young man allher life. Not that he had told her much about his own concerns. On thecontrary, after complimenting her on the subject of David's collar andDavid's bath, he had got her talking about herself; and she had told himabout Willie, and about Atchison, and about her desire to go home to NewEngland. 

"My sakes!" said she to herself; "what a chatterbox I'm getting to be inmy old age! What must he have thought of me?" But in her heart she knewhe had not thought any harm of her confidence. There had been nomistaking the sympathy in that sunburnt face, and if there had been anydoubt remaining, the hearty grip of the rough hand, which she stillfelt upon her palm, would have set her mind quite at rest. 

But if Mrs. Nancy wondered at herself on Tuesday, she had fairly lostall track of her own identity when, on Sunday, she found herself seatedbeside her broad-shouldered friend in a light wagon, bowling over theprairies behind a pair of frisky four-year-olds, while David boundedbeside them or scampered about in the vain pursuit of prairie-dogs. 

"Do you feel afraid?" asked her host, looking protectingly down upon thetiny figure at his side. 

"Not a mite, " she declared. "I never was one of the scary kind. "

They had left the mountains behind them and were speeding to theeastward. It seemed to her that a few hours of this rapid progress wouldbring them to the very shores of the Atlantic. On and on they went overthe undulating yellow plains. As they neared the top of each rise ofground Mrs. Nancy's heart stood still in a strange fantastic suspense. Would there be trees over beyond, or lakes, or rivers, or perhaps agreen New England meadow?

"Isn't it like sailing?" said her companion as they bowled along. 

"I never went sailing, " Mrs. Nancy replied. "I've only been out in aboat on the pond, and I think this is pleasanter. "

They did little talking on that drive. Mrs. Nancy was too entirelyabsorbed in her new experience to have much to say. But when at lastthey reached the ranch, lying like an oasis in the vast barren, withyoung corn sprouting in the wide fields, and a handful of cottonwoodtrees clustered about the house, the tears fairly started to the littlewoman's eyes, so much did this bit of rural landscape remind her of herown far-away New England. And when the master of the house led the wayinto a neat little room, with a south window looking across the plains, it came his turn for confidences. 

"This room was built on for my mother, " he said. 

"Did she live here with you?"

"No; she died before she could get here. "

"Oh dear!" said his little visitor. 

The two small words were eloquent with sympathy. 

That was a red-letter day for Mrs. Nancy Tarbell. She felt as though shewere getting a glimpse of the great West for the first time in all theseyears. When her host casually informed her that he owned about sevensquare miles of land and two hundred head of cattle, she gave a littlegasp of amazement. 

[Illustration: "A HANDFUL OF COTTONWOOD TREES CLUSTERED ABOUT THEHOUSE. "]

"I always wanted to see a cattle ranch, " she said. 

"Oh, this is no cattle ranch. It's only a dairy. " And he took her aboutthrough the many sheds and barns, which were hidden in a hollow a fewrods away. Here he showed her his ice-houses, his huge churns, and hismammoth "separator" that went whirling around, dividing the cream fromhundreds of gallons of milk in the time it would have taken her to skima couple of three-pint pans. 

"Sakes alive!" she exclaimed again and again, as these wonders wereexplained to her--"sakes alive! what would our folks say to that?"

"You'll have a great deal to tell them when you go back, " said Warren, studying her animated face. 

"If I ever go, " she said, with a little sigh. 

This was after dinner, which had been a savory meal served by a mancook. 

"Do you want very much to go?"

"Oh yes! I shall go just as soon as ever Atchison begins to pay again. Ihope I haven't any false pride, " she added, deprecatingly, "but I canlive cheaper here than I should be willing to there, where I've seenbetter days. "

Brave little Mrs. Nancy! It was not indeed false pride that deterredher, but the fear of being a burden to others. 

They were sitting in the big living-room, which on this great occasionhad been made as neat as her own little parlor. Antlers and otherstrange trophies ornamented the walls, where also guns and spurs andlassos hung. The little woman did not seem in the least out of placeamong these warlike objects. She sat in an old leathern chair, her feeton a coyote-skin, looking about her with quick bright motions that madethe big fellow think of the shy field creatures that sometimes strayedover his threshold--ground squirrels, rabbits, and the like. David laycurled up close beside her, and half a dozen less-favored dogs lookedwistfully in from time to time. Warren was wondering whether she couldpossibly fit in naturally to the stiff, scant New England life which hehad fled away from when a boy. Presently he said:

"Have you any idea how much your house and land are worth?"

"Oh yes! We paid ten hundred and fifty dollars for it when the house wasnew, but it's a good deal out of repair now. "

"But you know real estate is pretty high here just now. "

Struck by the peculiar emphasis with which he spoke, Mrs. Nancy gave hima startled look. "Why--why--what do you mean?"

"Well, I was talking with a real-estate man about the value of land theother day, and he said you could realize six thousand dollars on yourplace any day. "

"Six--thousand--dollars?"

"Yes, six thousand dollars. "

"Why, that's just what we had in Atchison!"

"Well, I guess there's no question but that you could get that for yourland to-morrow. "

It had indeed been an eventful day, and it was followed by a sleeplessnight. For years little Mrs. Nancy had had one great wish, and suddenlyit was to be fulfilled. She could go home--home to New England, to thevillage where she was born, to the village where everybody knew her, where they would talk of Willie. Through the hours of the night, whichsped fast, she thought and thought of the home-coming. She passed inreview all her old neighbors, forgetting for the moment how many wouldbe found missing; she wandered in spirit through the familiar pastures, beneath the green trees, beside the pond at the foot of the hill. Suddenly a strange suggestion intruded itself upon her thoughts. Must itnot be "kind o' damp" with all that swamp land so near by, and the greatelm-trees so close about the house? Her house no longer, however. It hadpassed into the hands of strangers--city people, whom she did not know. She wondered where she should live. She should want to be independent, and she should hate to "board out. "

But with the alloy of perplexity her radiant visions faded, and she fellasleep. For the first time in all these years the milkman found lockeddoors. He would not disturb the "little widdy, " but when he had left thecan upon the back steps he turned away, feeling somewhat aggrieved. 

The next morning, after her house was set in order and her marketingdone, Mrs. Nancy sat herself down in her porch to darn her stockings. She had formed the habit, for Willie's sake, of doing all the workpossible out in the air and sunshine, and she still clung to all thehabits that were associated with him. Her weekly darning was a triflingpiece of work, for every hole which ventured to make its appearance inthose little gray stockings was promptly nipped in the bud. 

The water was merrily flowing in the irrigating ditch, a light breezewas rustling in the cotton woods before the door, while the passingseemed particularly brisk. Two small boys went cantering by on onebareback horse; a drove of cattle passed the end of the street two orthree rods away, driven by mounted cow-boys; a collection of smallchildren in a donkey cart halted just before her door, not of their ownfree will, but in obedience to a caprice of the donkey's. They did nothurt Mrs. Nancy's feelings by cudgelling the fat little beast, but satlaughing and whistling and coaxing him until, of his own accord, he puthis big flapping ears forward as though they had been sails, and ambledon. There were pretty turnouts to watch, and spirited horses, and Mrs. Nancy found her mind constantly wandering from what she meant should bethe subject of her thoughts. 

When the postman appeared around the corner he came to her gate andlifted the latch. It was not time for her small bank dividend. Theletter must be from her husband's sister-in-law, who wrote to her abouttwice a year. As Mrs. Nancy sat down to read the letter her eyes restedfor a moment upon the mountains. 

"If Almira could have come with the letter she'd have thought thosesnowy peaks well worth the journey, " she said to herself. And then sheread the letter. 

Here it is:

 "DEAR NANCY, --Excuse my long silence, but I've been suffering from rheumatism dreadfully, and haven't had the spirit to write to anybody but my Almira. It's been so kind of lonesome since she went away that I guess that's why the rheumatism got such a hold of me. When you ain't got anybody belonging to you, you get kind of low-spirited. Then the weather--it's been about as bad as I ever seen it. Not a good hard rain, but a steady drizzle-drozzle day after day. You can't put your foot out of doors without getting your petticoats draggled. But you'll want to hear the news. Cousin Joshua he died last month, and the place was sold to auction. Deacon Stebbins bought it low. He's getting harder-fisted every year. Eliza Stebbins she's pretty far gone with lung trouble, living in that damp old place; but he won't hear to making any change, and she ain't got life enough left to ask for it. Both her boys is off to Boston. Does seem as though you couldn't hold the young folks here with ropes, and I don't know who's going to run the farms and the corner store when we're gone. Going pretty fast we be too. They've been eight deaths in the parish since last Thanksgiving--Mary Jane Evans and me was counting them up last sewing circle. Mr. Williams, the new minister, made out as we'd better find a more cheerful subject; but we told him old Parson Edwards before him had given us to understand that it was profitable and edifying to the spiritual man to dwell on thoughts of death and eternity. They do say that Parson Williams would be glad to get another parish. He's a stirring kind of man, and there ain't overmuch to stir, round here. I sometimes wish I could get away myself. I'd like to go down to Boston and board for a spell, jest to see somebody passing by; but they say board's high down there and living's poor; and, after all, it's about as easy to stick it out here. I don't know though's I wonder that you feel 's you do about coming home. 'T ain't what you're used to out West, and I don't suppose you ever feel real easy in your mind from cow-boys and Indians and wild animals. I was reading only yesterday about a grizzly-bear that killed a man right there in the Rocky Mountains, and I'm glad you feel 's you do about coming home. I should like to think that you'd be here to close my eyes at the last. 

 "But no more at present. This is quite a letter for me. Your true friend, "ALMIRA TARBELL. 

 "P. S. --You remember my old tabby that I set such store by? She died along in March, and I buried her under the sugar-maple side of the barn. The maples didn't do as well this year. "

"Poor Almira, " said the little widow, folding the letter with a sigh;"she's having a real hard time. I do feel for her, I declare. "

An hour after, when her new friends Warren and David came to inquire howshe had borne the fatigues of her yesterday's drive, they found hersitting with the letter in her hands. There was a bright flush on hercheeks, and a look of perplexity in her blue eyes. 

"Fine day, isn't it?" said Warren, while David wagged his tail till italmost touched his ears. 

"Yes, it's a very fine day. 'Pears to me Colorado never did look so niceas it does to-day. "

"That is because you are thinking of leaving us, " Warren rejoined, thoughtfully pulling the ears of David, who could scarcely containhimself for joy at being the object of such a flattering attention. 

"I don't know 's I should be in such a hurry to go right straight away, even if I could sell my land, " said the widow, slipping the letter intoher pocket with a guilty air. 

They chatted awhile in the bright sunshine, and Warren soon had aninkling of the little woman's state of mind. 

"I don't suppose, now, you'd be willing to take a ground-rent on theother half of your land if a desirable party should apply? A rent, say, for five years, with the privilege of purchase at the expiration of theterm?"

The long words sounded very technical and business-like, yet ratheragreeable too. 

"You mean somebody might like to build on my land?"

"That's the idea, " said Warren. "Fact is, " he went on, after a pause, "Ihappen to know a nice, steady young fellow who is thinking of gettingmarried. He told me he would be willing to pay $300 and taxes. "

"Three hundred dollars!" cried the wondering little land-owner. "Why, Ishould feel like a rich woman!"

"Well, the land's worth it, and the young man's able to pay. "

The air was growing warmer and sweeter every minute, and the water inthe irrigating ditch sounded quite jubilant as it raced past the house. Yes, Colorado was a pleasant place to live in, especially with WalterWarren for a neighbor only ten miles away. The ranch did not seem at allfar off since that rapid drive across the prairies. 

She sat so long silent that her visitor felt he must offer greaterinducements. He began pulling David's ears so vigorously that a dog ofa less refined perception might have howled remonstrance, and then, while the color deepened in the sunburnt face and an engaging shynesspossessed him, Warren said, "Perhaps you'd take more kindly to thearrangement if you knew who the young man was?"

"My dear, are you going to get married?" cried Mrs. Nancy, forgettingalike her perplexities and her dreams of opulence. 

"Well, yes, I am; some time next fall. She lives back East; and Ithought it would be nice to have a little place in town where we couldstay through the off seasons. You'll let us come, won't you?" he cried, with a look of boyish beseeching. "I know you would if you could seeJenny. _She's so sweet!_"

The momentous visit was over; Warren had had his turn at confidences, and was now striding down the street, with David at his heels. 

The little widow stood at the gate, her heart feeling bigger and warmerthan for many a long day. Once more she looked down under the row ofcotton woods, which had come into full leaf during the past week, lookedto where her giant mountain neighbor stood, strong and constant as anold friend. The air seemed clearer, the sunshine brighter, than everbefore. The running stream was singing its own gay song, and for once itwaked no longing in her breast. As Mrs. Nancy turned to walk up thepath, she drew forth Almira's letter, not without a momentary pang ofremorse. With the letter in her hand she paused again, and looked andlistened as though she would drink in the whole of Colorado at onedraught. Suddenly a gleam of roguish wilfulness came into the sweet oldface, and speaking half aloud, she murmured, "I don't know but I'm getting to be a heartless old woman, but--I'mafraid I'd full as lief somebody else closed Almira's eyes for her!"

And with this revolutionary sentiment the faithless little New Englanderpassed into the house that had at last taken on the dignity and thepreciousness of a home. 

II. 

BRIAN BORU. 

Sir Bryan Parkhurst, a young Irish sportsman just over from the oldcountry, was rather disappointed in Colorado; and that was a pity, considering that he had crossed an ocean and half a continent to getthere. The climate, to be sure, was beyond praise, and climate is whatColorado is for, as any resident of Springtown will tell you. Nature, too, was very satisfactory. He liked the way the great mass of RockyMountains thrust itself up, a mighty barrier against the west, perfectlyregardless of scenic conventionalities. There was something refreshinglydemocratic about the long procession of peaks, seeming to be all ofabout the same height. In that third week of September not a single oneof them all wore the ermine, though their claim to that distinction, measured by their altitude, equalled that of their snow-clad cousins ofanother hemisphere. On the other hand, Sir Bryan pleased himself withfancying that the splashes of golden aspen and crimson sumac on themountain sides, contrasting with the brilliant, unalterable blue of thesky, had a Star-Spangled-Banner effect--a thing which the Britishtourist is always delighted to discover. 

Truth to tell, it was the people that bothered Sir Bryan. In dress, inmanners, --he sometimes feared in morals, they lacked the strong flavorwhich he had confidently looked for. They did not wear flannel shirts ingeneral society; they did not ask impertinent questions; a whiskeycocktail did not seem to play a necessary part in the ceremony ofintroduction; the almighty dollar itself did not stalk through everyconversation, putting the refinements of life to the blush. In short, Sir Bryan found himself forced to base his regard for his newacquaintances upon such qualities as good breeding, intelligence, and acordial yet discriminating hospitality, --qualities which he wasperfectly familiar with at home. 

He sometimes wondered whether the taint of civilization might notalready have attached itself to the grizzly bear and the mountain lion, for whose inspiring acquaintance he had ardently pined since boyhood. Hewas on the eve of going to pay his respects to these worthies in theirown mountain fastnesses, and, meanwhile, was getting himself in trainingby walking great distances with a rifle over his shoulder. 

In the course of the last of his extended tramps--for he was due to jointhat inveterate sportsman, Lord Longshot, at Denver, on the followingday, --he found himself passing through a wilderness of loveliness. Hehad entered what he would have termed, with the genial inaccuracy of hisrace, a "boundless enclosure, " and having crossed a vast, yellowishfield, populous with scrawny cattle and self-important prairie-dogs, hewas following a well-marked road, which led alluringly up hill. Thousands of scrub-oaks, in every shade of bronze and russet, massedthemselves on either hand, and in among them tufts of yellow astersshone, and here and there a belated gilia tossed its feathery plume. Scattered groups of pine trees that scorn the arid plains were lordingit over the bolder slopes of the mountain side. The steep road went onits winding way, after the manner of its kind, dipping occasionally tomeet a bridge of planks, beneath which flowed a stream of autumn colors. After a while Sir Bryan found the ascent too gradual for his ambition, and, leaving the road to make its way as it would, he pushed upwardsthrough the bushes. Every step brought him nearer the gigantic cragswhich formed the buttresses of the mountain, and looked wild andimpregnable enough to be the haunt of the grizzly himself. 

The young man's thoughts were dwelling fondly upon the grizzly of hisdreams, when he beheld a sight that sent the blood back to his heartwith a rush. Not fifty yards away, in a sunny opening, lay a mass ofbrownish fur which could belong to nobody but a bear _in propriapersona_. Great Cæsar! Could it be possible? Almost too agitated tobreathe, Sir Bryan moved cautiously toward the creature, covering itwith his rifle. The bear, with the politeness which appeared to cling toall classes of society in this effetely civilized West, rose up and saton his haunches, facing his visitor. Sir Bryan fired and the beartumbled over like a ninepin. 

Sir Bryan Parkhurst, as became a young Irish baronet, had enjoyed hisshare of sensations in life. A year previous he had almost broken hisneck riding across country, and had won the brush into the bargain. Hehad once saved a man from drowning on the coast of Cornwall. He hadcome into his title unexpectedly, and made his new tenantry adore him. To crown all, he had, at a still poignantly recent date, practicallyrefused the hand of an English heiress. But he had never before shot abear, nor indeed had he ever seen one outside the Zoo. As he steadfastlyregarded the heap of brown fur, a sinister doubt invaded his mind. Mightit be a cow, after all? Forgetful of the well-established fact innatural history that cows never sit on their haunches, even with a viewto serving as target to an ambitious sportsman, he cautiously approachedhis victim. 

It was unquestionably a bear, though not of a terrific aspect. Sir Bryanexamined the lifeless body with the keenest interest. He had seen adomestic pig which would have weighed more; he had encountered more thanone dog of a more dangerous appearance; yet, when all was said, a bearwas a bear. 

Sir Bryan seated himself upon a rock to reflect upon his next step. Itwas close upon midday. He thought he must be some eight miles from town. When he had enjoyed his bear for a few minutes, he would return thereand get some men to come and cart the carcass to town. He would have theskin removed and cured, and the meat--

"Brian! Brian Boru!"

The words came ringing up the mountain slope in a bell-like soprano. Whyshould a bell-like soprano call the name of the old Irish king in thisremote wilderness? Was there witchery at work? Was the bear merely apart of the phantasmagoria of an enchanted region?

Sir Bryan, undeterred by these suggestions of his fancy, lifted up hisvoice and shouted "Hulloo!" and behold! a few minutes later, a horsecame pushing through the scrub-oaks, bearing upon his back an enchantedprincess. As was to be expected of a Colorado princess, enchanted orotherwise, she had not quite the traditional appearance. In lieu of aflowing robe of spotless white, she was clad in a plain black skirt anda shirt waist of striped cambric, while the golden fillet, if such shewore, was quite concealed by a very jaunty sailor-hat, than which nofillet could have been more becoming. In short, the pleasing visionwhich Sir Bryan beheld was far more to his taste than any princess offairy lore could have been. As he sprang to his feet and lifted his hathe wondered whether the expression "nut-brown maid" was poetry. If so, he had performed an unprecedented feat in recalling it so aptly. 

There is a difference in the way men lift their hats, and Sir Bryan'sway was a charming one. 

"Did you call?" asked the nut-brown maid. 

"No; I only answered when I heard you call my name. "

"Is your name Brian Boru?" she inquired, with animation. 

"I am an Irishman, and my name is Bryan, so they used to call me BrianBoru. "

"How very curious! That is the name of my bear!"

"Of your bear?" he repeated in blank amazement. 

"Yes. Have you seen anything of him? I'm a little near-sighted and----"

Sir Bryan Parkhurst never shirked a dilemma. 

"I've just shot a bear, " he blurted out, "but I hope, with all my heart, it wasn't yours!"

"Shot a bear?" cried the girl, in consternation. "Oh! how could you?"

Before Sir Bryan could reach out a helping hand, her feet were on theground. 

"Where is he? Oh! where is he?" she cried in tragic accents. 

Sir Bryan pointed to the prostrate form of the murdered bear. Alas! Itmust have been her bear, for she knelt down beside him, and gazed uponhim long and mournfully. 

And truly there was something pathetic about the victim, viewed fromthis new standpoint. He lay on his side, exposing the wound, which wasclotted with blood. His small eyes were open, and a red tongue justvisible between his parted teeth. One short, rigid, foreleg wasstretched out as though in remonstrance, and just within its embrace afading spray of gilia lifted its fragile blossoms. 

Sir Bryan stood lost in contemplation of this singular scene; thegraceful figure of the kneeling girl, bending over the mass of coarsebrown fur; the flower, standing unscathed close beside the long, destructive claws. A few yards away, the horse lazily whisked his tail, while to the right the frowning crags rose, so near and steep that theyseemed about to topple over and make an end of the improbable situation. 

At last the girl lifted her head, murmuring, "Straight through theheart!"

The sportsman's vanity gave a little throb. It was a pretty shot, byJove! He moved nearer. 

"I'm no end sorry about it, " he declared. 

Alas, for that throb of vanity! His contrition did not have the truering. 

The girl turned upon him with quick distrust. No, he was more glad thansorry. 

"If we were in England, " she cried, with withering scorn, "you wouldhave to be more than sorry. "

"In England?"

"Yes, in England, or in Ireland, or anywhere round there. If I'd shot somuch as a miserable pheasant on your land you'd have--you'd have _had meup before the bailey_!"

Clearly the girl's reading of English fiction had confused her ideas ofBritish magistracy. But Sir Bryan was generous, and overlooked sideissues. 

"Is this your land?" he asked, gazing at the wild mountain side, andthen at the flaming cheeks of the girl. She stood there like an animatedbit of autumn coloring. 

"Of course it's my land, " she declared. 

"But I didn't know it was your land. "

"You knew it wasn't _yours_!" she cried vehemently. 

Poor Sir Bryan was hopelessly bewildered. The great West was, after all, not quite like the rest of the world, if charming young ladies owned themountain sides, danced attendance upon by bears of dangerous aspect andpolished manners. He blushed violently, but he did not look in the leastawkward. 

"I wish you would tell me your name, " he said, feeling that if thisremarkable young lady possessed anything so commonplace as a name, theknowledge of it might place him on a more equal footing with her. 

"Certainly, Mr. Bryan, " she replied. "My name is Merriman; KathleenMerriman, " and she looked at him with great dignity but with norelenting. 

"Well, Miss Merriman, I don't suppose there's any good in talking aboutit. My being awfully sorry doesn't help matters any. I don't see thatthere's anything to be done about it, but to have the carcass carted offyour land as soon as may be. "

"Carted off my land!" the girl cried, with kindling indignation. "Youneed not trouble yourself to do anything of the kind. " Then, with asudden change to the elegiac, she fixed her mournful gaze upon herdeparted friend and said, "I shall bury him where he lies!"

In this softened mood she seemed less formidable, and Sir Bryan so farplucked up his spirit as to make a suggestion. 

"Perhaps I could help you, " he said. "If I had a shovel, or something, I think I could dig a first-rate grave. "

The fair mourner looked at him doubtfully, and then she looked at hisnamesake, and apparently the poetic justice of the thing appealed toher. 

"There's a spade over at the house, " she said, "and I don't know thatit's any more than fair that you should bury him. "

Sir Bryan's spirits rose still higher at the hope of partial expiationof his crime; but with his rising spirits came a premonition of a goodhealthy appetite which would soon be due, and he asked meekly: "Wouldyou mind, then, if I were to go back to town first, to get something toeat? A person doesn't dig so well, I suppose, on an empty stomach. "

"No, you'd better stay and get your dinner with me. It will take youpretty much all day to bury Brian. You probably never buried a bearbefore, " she added, as patronizingly as if she herself had been aprofessional grave-digger, "and you don't know what a piece of work it'sgoing to be. "

They started to push their way through the scrub-oaks. 

"Shall I lead your horse for you?" Sir Bryan asked. 

[Illustration: "THE VAST SEA OF THE PRAIRIE. "]

"No, thank you. Comrag will follow, all right;" and Comrag did follow, so close upon their heels, that Sir Bryan was in momentary expectationof being trampled upon. 

Comrag was an unbeautiful beast, and he permitted himself startlingliberties; crowding himself in between his mistress and her companion, helping himself without ceremony to a bunch of asters which Sir Bryanhad in his hand, and neighing straight into the young baronet's ear asthey came in sight of the house. 

The "house" was a mere hut, painted red, entirely dwarfed by an ungainlychimney of rough stone. The little hut was built against a huge boulder, which towered above the chimney itself, and looked as though it hadstood there since the foundation of the earth. There was a rusticveranda along the front of this diminutive dwelling, which stood on aslight eminence; and, as Sir Bryan stepped upon the veranda, he drew along breath of amazement and delight. Looking down over the broad, oak-clad slope of the mountain, he beheld the vast sea of the prairie, stretching for leagues upon leagues away to the low horizon. From thatheight the view seemed limitless, and the illusion of the sea, whichalways hovers over the prairies, was complete. 

As his hostess came out with a long-handled spade in her hand, he cried, "That is the most magnificent thing I ever saw!"

She did not answer immediately, but stood leaning upon the spade, andgazing forth as intently as if it had been to her too a revelation. 

Then she drew a long breath and said, in a rapt tone, as though thewords came to her one by one: "Yes, it makes you feel sometimes as ifyour soul would get away from you. "

They stood there for a while, watching the cloud-shadows swimming uponthat mystic sea. The smoke of an express train on the horizon seemedfairly to crawl, so great was the distance. 

"That looks like the smoke of a steamer, " Sir Bryan observed. 

"Then you think it seems like the sea, as everybody else does, " sheanswered. "I never saw the sea, myself, but I don't believe it can befiner than this. "

There was another pause, and then, with a sudden change of mood, towhich she seemed subject, the rapt worshipper turned her thoughts topractical things, saying briskly: "Here's your spade, Mr. Bryan. Youhad better go and begin, while I get the dinner. I'll fire a shot whenit's ready. "

Sir Bryan obediently took the spade. 

"How am I to find my way to the bear?" he asked. 

All about the little clearing was an unbroken wilderness of scrub-oaks, gorgeous but bewildering. 

"Why, you can just follow Comrag's tracks, " she said, pointing towardthe spot where the hoof-prints emerged from the brush. "You'd betterleave your rifle here, " she added with some asperity, "You might take afancy to shoot Comrag if he strayed your way. "

It was Sir Bryan Parkhurst's first attempt at digging, and he devoutlyhoped it might be his last. He thought at first that he should never gethis spade inserted into the earth at all, so numerous and exasperatingwere the hindrances it met with. The hardest and grittiest of stones, tangled roots, and solid cakes of earth, which seemed to cohere by meansof some subterranean cement, offered a complicated resistance, which wasnot what he had expected of Mother Earth. He began to fear that thatmuch bepraised dame was something of a vixen after all. 

The other Brian lay, meanwhile, in all the dignity and solemnity offuneral state, awaiting burial. As Sir Bryan toiled at his thanklesstask he found himself becoming strangely impressed. There seemed to be aweird and awesome significance in the scene. He did not know why it was, but the beetling crags above him, the consciousness of the marvellousplains below, the rhythmic murmur of the wind in the pine trees near athand, the curious impenetrableness of the old earth, the kingship ofdeath asserting itself in the motionless brute which he had killed, butwhich he was powerless to make alive again--all these weird andunaccustomed influences seemed to be clutching at his imagination, taking liberties with his sense of identity. He had just about reachedthe conclusion that it was all a mistake about his being anybody inparticular, when a shot rang out and reminded him that he was, at anyrate, ravenously hungry. 

Five minutes later he had washed his hands at the toy sink of a toykitchen and was seated at a snowy table on the little veranda, partakingof a mutton stew which seemed a dish fit for the gods. 

It had been something of a shock to Sir Bryan to find places laid foronly two. He had never before enjoyed a _tête-à-tête_ meal with a younglady, and it was some minutes before he could rid his mind of theimpression that an irate chaperon was about to appear from behind theboulder, or, for the matter of that, from the depths of the earthitself. His recent experience of the difficulty of penetrating thesurface of the earth might have given him a sense of security in thatdirection, had he not cherished an exaggerated opinion of the prowess ofthe traditional chaperon in thwarting the pleasures of the young. Thecomeliness, too, of his hostess led him, by inference, to suppose thatthe chaperon in question would prove to be of a peculiarly vicious andaggressive type. No such apparition came, however, to disturb hissatisfaction, and he gradually came to believe in the lawfulness of thesituation. His face may have betrayed something of the questioningswhich were racking his mind, for the self-possessed Kathleen, afterheaping his plate with stew for the second time, gave him anelder-sisterly look, and said: "Mr. Bryan, you are such a very discreetyoung man, that I believe I will answer all the questions you are dyingto ask. "

Sir Bryan blushed, as he always hated himself for doing, and thenut-brown maid continued:

"Yes, I live here all alone. I am taking up a claim. No. Nobody molestsme, and I get on beautifully. Sometimes my friends come up and spend afew days with me, but not often. Comrag and I do the marketing once ortwice a week. I've got a lovely cool cellar up against the boulder underthe house. "

All this she said like a child repeating a lesson she has learned byrote, which the teacher wants to hear, but which the child finds ratheruninteresting. But Sir Bryan listened as if it had been the mostexciting tale he had ever heard. Thus encouraged she proceeded with thedry statement of facts. 

"I've only got to stay here a month longer to secure the claim. I've gotthree hundred acres, and it has cost me just three hundred dollars totake it up and to build my house and Comrag's stall. I could sell outto-morrow for five hundred dollars, but I don't know that I would sellfor five thousand. Because I have such a beautiful time here. I feelsomehow as if I had struck root. "

Sir Bryan knew exactly what she meant. In spite of the sailor hat andshirt waist, she had the air of having grown up among the rocks andglowing oak leaves. He said nothing, but his attentive attitude askedfor more. 

"Oh, yes! and about Brian Boru, " she proceeded. "I found him last June, lying up against a tree with his leg broken. I fed him until his leg wasmended, and--and"--with a little catch in her breath--"he adored me! Seehow green it looks off to the south, " she hastened to add, brushing herhand across her eyes. 

An hour after dinner, as Sir Bryan still labored at that contumaciousgrave, his hostess came and seated herself upon the rock, whence he, inthe first flush of triumph, had surveyed the dead bear. Sir Bryan couldnot but feel flattered by this kind attention, and, being particularlyanxious to acquit himself creditably before so distinguished aspectator, he naturally became more and more awkward at his work. 

The young lady considerately divided her attention between the futileefforts of the amateur grave-digger and the flippant behavior of a blackand white magpie, which was perched on the branch of a dead pine nearby, derisively jerking its long tail. She wondered whether the magpieperhaps shared her astonishment, that an able-bodied son of Erin shouldnot take more naturally to a spade. She had supposed that, if there wasone weapon that an Irishman thoroughly understood, it was that which hernew acquaintance was struggling with. She cocked her head on one side, with something of a magpie air, while a little crease appeared betweenher eyebrows. 

"Why don't you coax it a little more?" she suggested. 

Sir Bryan straightened himself up and stood there, very red in the face, trying to make out whether she was laughing at him. Then he laughed athimself and said, "I believe you are right. I was getting vindictive. "

After that he seemed to get on better. 

They buried the bear just as the heavy shadow of the mountain fellacross their feet. By the time the last clod of earth had fallen uponthe grave, the mountain shadow had found its way a hundred miles acrossthe plains, and a narrow golden rim, like a magic circlet, glimmered onthe horizon. 

"Do you never feel afraid?" he asked, as they walked back to the house. 

"No. I suppose I ought to, but I don't. I was a little disappointed thefirst summer I was here, because nothing happened. It seemed such achance. But somehow things don't happen very often. Do you think theydo? And now I'm a good deal older and more experienced, and I don'texpect adventures. I'm almost twenty-five, " she declared, with thepardonable pride of advancing years. 

There was that in Sir Bryan's face as well as in his character which hadalways invited confidence. Consequently it did not seem to him in theleast degree unnatural that this charming girl should tell him aboutherself, as they walked side by side along the lonely mountain slope, inthe fading light. 

"I forgot to tell you, " she was saying, "that I am a trained nurse. Icame out West from Iowa with a sick lady who died very soon, and I likedthe mountains, and so I stayed. "

"And you've given up nursing?"

"Oh, no. In the winter season I am always busy. I couldn't afford togive up nursing, and I don't believe I should want to. It's lovely tohelp people when they are suffering. You get almost to feel as thoughthey belonged to you, and I haven't anybody belonging to me. "

All this was said in a tone of soliloquy, without a trace ofself-consciousness. Miss Kathleen Merriman seemed to find it quitenatural that she should stand alone and unprotected in the world. Butsomehow it conflicted with all Sir Bryan's articles of faith. Women wereintended to be taken care of, especially young and pretty women. Afeeling of genuine tenderness came over him and a longing to protectthis brave young creature. There was, to be sure, something about theway her head was set upon her shoulders, that made him doubt whether itwould be easy to acquire the right to take care of her. But that madethe task all the more tempting. The old song that every Irishman loveswas in his thoughts. He felt an impulse, such as others had felt in thisyoung lady's presence, to whisper: "Kathleen Mavourneen. " He tried tofancy the consequences of such a bold step, but he did not venture toface them. He therefore contented himself with observing that the airhad grown very chilly. 

They had reached the little veranda once more, and Sir Bryan was notinvited to tarry. The girl stood there in the deepening twilight, a stepabove him, leaning upon the spade he had delivered up, and looking outacross the shadowy plains, and Sir Bryan could think of no possibleexcuse for staying any longer. As he flung his rifle over his shoulderand made a motion to go, she held out her hand, with a sudden friendlyimpulse, and said: "I was very unjust this morning. You couldn'tpossibly have known, and it was very kind of you to bury him. "

Sir Bryan murmured a remorseful word or two, and then he started downthe mountain side. 

"Good-bye, " he cried, across the scrub-oaks that were growing dark andindistinct. 

"Good-bye, Mr. Bryan, " came the answer, sounding shrill and near throughthe intervening distance. 

As he looked back, a huge, ungainly form thrust itself before theslender figure. A great dark head stood out against the light shirtwaistthe girl wore, and he perceived that Comrag had strolled from his stallfor a friendly good-night. 

"The only friend she has left now, " Sir Bryan reflected in sorrowfulcompunction. 

He strode down the mountain at a good pace. Now and then a startledrabbit crossed his path, and once his imagination turned a scrub-oakinto the semblance of a bear. But he gave no heed to these apparitions. His sportsman's instinct had suffered a check. 

By the time Sir Bryan had reached the outskirts of the town, the starswere out. He looked up at the great mountain giant that closed the rangeat the south. Wrapped in darkness and in silence it stood against thestarry sky. He tried to imagine that he could perceive a twinkling lightfrom the little cabin, but none was visible. The enchantment of themountain-side had already withdrawn itself into impregnable shadow. 

"Jove!" he said to himself, as he turned into the prosaic town. "If Iwere an American, or something of that sort, I'd go up there again. "

Being, however, a young Irish baronet, as shy of entanglements with hisown kind as he was eager for encounters with wild beasts, he very wiselywent his way the next morning, and up to this time has never beheldmountain or maiden again. 

Over the grave which Sir Bryan dug, there stands to-day a stout pineboard, upon which may be read the following legend:

 "Here lies the body of Brian Boru, shot through the heart and subsequently buried by an agreeable Paddy of the same name. "

Every year, however, the inscription becomes somewhat less legible andit is to be feared that all record of the poor bear will soon be lost. 

III. 

JAKE STANWOOD'S GAL. 

Jacob Stanwood was not the only college-bred man, stranded more or lesslike a disabled hull, upon the prairie sea of Colorado. Within theradius of a hundred miles--no great distance as prairie miles arereckoned, --there were known to be some half dozen of the fraternity, putting their superior equipment to the test, opposing trained minds andmuscles to the stubborn resistance of an ungenial nature. The varyingresult of the struggle in different cases would seem to indicate that itis moral fibre which nature respects and submits to, rather than anyacquired advantages. 

[Illustration: "BETWEEN HIS CABIN DOOR AND 'THE RANGE' STRETCHED TWENTYMILES OF ARID PRAIRIE. "]

In Jacob Stanwood's case there was no such test applied, for there wasabsolutely no struggle. He would have found it much easier to send abullet through his brain than to put that organ to any violent exertion. Up to him, but he sometimes fancied that he saw it coming. At such timeshe would philosophize over himself and fate, until he had exhaustedthose two great subjects, and then, in a quiet and gentlemanly way, hewould drown speculation in the traditional dram. He never drank anythingbut "Old Rye, " and he flattered himself that he did so only when hepleased. If he somewhat misapprehended his relation with old rye, it wasperhaps no wonder; for in his semi-occasional encounters with thisgentlemanly intoxicant, his only witnesses and commentators were hiscollie dogs, and they never ventured upon an opinion in the matter. 

When he was in a good mood Stanwood would sit in his doorway of a summerevening, with the collies at his feet, and commune with nature asamicably as if she had been his best friend. Between his cabin door and"the range" stretched twenty miles of arid prairie; but when the sun wasin the west, the wide expanse took on all the mystic hues that theOrientals love and seek to imitate, and he gazed across it to thetowering peaks with a sense of ownership which no paternal acres, novelvet lawns, nor stately trees, could have awakened in him. A row oftelegraph-poles, which had doubtless once been trees, straggled alongthe line of the railroad, a few miles to the north, and his own windmillindicated the presence of water underground. But as far as the eye couldreach not a living tree could be seen, not a glimmer of a lake orrivulet; only the palpitating plain and the soaring peaks, and at hisfeet the cluster of faithful friends, gazing, from time to time, withrapt devotion into his face. 

On these meditative evenings Stanwood found a leisurely companionship inreminiscences of better days; reminiscences more varied and brilliantthan most men have for solace. But it was part of his philosophy neverto dwell on painful contrasts. Even in the memory of his wife, whom hehad adored and lost, even into that memory he allowed no poignantelement to enter. He thought of her strong and gay and happy, making ajoy of life. He never permitted the recollection of her illness anddeath, nor of his own grief, to intrude itself. Indeed he had succeededin reality, as well as in retrospect, in evading his grief. There hadbeen a little daughter of six, who had formed part of the painfulassociation which his temperament rebelled against. Foregoing, in herfavor, the life-interest in her mother's estate to which he wasentitled, he had placed the child under the guardianship of an unclewhom he equally disliked and trusted, and, having thus disposed of hislast responsibility, he had gone forth into what proved to be the verydiverting world of Europe. The havoc which some ten years' sojournwrought in his very considerable fortune would force one to theconclusion that he had amused himself with gambling; but whether instocks, or at faro tables, or in some more subtle wise, was known onlyto himself. 

He had returned to his own country by way of Japan and San Francisco, and then he had set his face to the East, with an idea that he mustrepair his shattered fortunes. When once the Rocky Mountains werecrossed, however, and no longer stood as a bulwark between him andunpleasant realities, he suddenly concluded to go no farther. It struckhim that he was hardly prepared for the hand-to-hand struggle withfortune which he had supposed himself destined to; it would be more inhis line to take up a claim and live there as master, though it wereonly master of a desert. 

The little daughter, with whom he kept up a desultory correspondence, had expressed her regret in a letter written in the stiff, carefullyworded style of "sweet sixteen, " and he had never guessed the passion ofdisappointment which the prim little letter concealed. 

This had happened five years ago. He had taken up his claimsuccessfully, but there success ended. After four years or more ofrather futile "ranching, " he sold most of his stock to his men, whopromptly departed with it, and proceeded to locate a claim a few milesdistant. The incident amused him as illustrating the dignity of labor, and kindred philosophical theories which the present age seems inventedto establish. 

One horse, a couple of cows, and his six collie dogs of assorted agesand sizes, he still retained, and with their assistance he was rapidlymaking away with the few hundreds accruing from the sale of his stockand farming implements. He had placed the money in the bank at CameronCity, a small railroad-station in a hollow five miles north of him, andit was when his eyes fell upon the rapidly diminishing monthly balancethat he thought he saw coming that unpleasant alternative of whichmention has been made. 

He found no little entertainment, after the departure of his men, inconverting their late sleeping-apartment into what he was pleased tocall a "museum. " To this end nothing further was necessary, afterremoving all traces of their late occupancy, than that two oldsole-leather trunks should render up their contents, consisting ofhalf-forgotten souvenirs of travel. The change was magic. Unmountedphotographs appeared upon the wall, an ivory Faust and Gretchen fromNuremberg stood, self-centred and unobservant, upon the chimney-shelfamong trophies from Turkey, and Japan, Spain, and Norway. A gorgeous_kimono_ served as curtain at the south window, a Persian altar-cloth atthe west; and through the west window, the great Peak gazed with stolidindifference upon all that splendor, while the generous Coloradosunshine poured itself in at the south in unstinted measure, just aslavishly as if its one mission had been to illuminate the alreadygorgeous display. 

And then, when all was done, Stanwood found to his surprise, that hestill liked best to sit at his cabin-door, and watch the play of lighton peak and prairie. 

Late one afternoon, as he sat in the doorway, at peace with himself, andin agreeable harmony with the world as he beheld it, his eye was caughtby an indistinguishable object moving across the plain from thedirection of Cameron City. He regarded it as he might have regarded theprogress of a coyote or prairie-dog, till it stopped at his own gate, half a mile to the northward. A vague feeling of dissatisfaction cameover him at the sight, but he did not disturb himself, nor make anyremarks to the dogs on the subject. They however soon pricked up theirears, and sprang to their feet, excited and pleased. They werehospitable souls and welcomed the diversion of a visitor. As the wagondrew nearer, Stanwood observed that there was a woman sitting beside thedriver; whereupon he repaired to his own room to give himself a hastypolish. The dogs began to bark in a friendly manner, and, under cover oftheir noise, the wagon came up and stopped before the door. Suddenly arap resounded, and in acknowledgment of this unusual ceremony, themaster of the house went so far as to pull on his best coat beforestepping out into the main room. There in the doorway, cutting off theview of the Peak, stood a tall, well-dressed young woman, patting one ofthe dogs, while the others leaped, barking, about her. 

Somewhat mystified by this apparition, Stanwood approached, and said;"Good-evening, madam. "

"Good-evening, " came the reply, in a rather agitated voice. "I'mElizabeth. "

"The deuce you are!"

Struck, not by the unfatherly, but by the ungentlemanly nature of hisresponse, Stanwood promptly gathered himself together, to meet thesituation. 

"Pray come in and take a seat, " he said; and then, falling into theprairie speech: "Where are you stopping?"

The tall young lady, who had entered, but who had not taken theproffered seat, looked at him a moment, and then she came toward himwith a swift, impulsive movement, and said: "Why, papa, I don't believeyou know me! I'm Elizabeth!"

"Yes, yes, oh, yes! I understand. But I thought perhaps you were payinga visit somewhere--some school friend, you know, or--or--yes--someschool friend. "

The girl was looking at him half bewildered, half solicitous. It was notthe reception she had anticipated at the end of her two-thousand-milejourney. But then, this was not the man she had expected to see--thisgaunt, ill-clad figure, with the worn, hollow-eyed face, and the grayhair. Why, her father was only fifty years old, yet the lines she sawwere lines of age and suffering. Suddenly all her feeling of perplexityand chagrin and wounded pride was merged in a profound tenderness. Shedrew nearer, extending both her hands, placed them gently upon hisshoulders and said: "Will you please to give me a kiss?"

Stanwood, much abashed, bent his head toward the blooming young face, and imprinted a perfunctory kiss upon the waiting lips. Thisunaccustomed exercise completed his discomfiture. For the first time inhis life he felt himself unequal to a social emergency. 

A curious sensation went over Elizabeth. Somehow she felt as if she hadbeen kissed by a total stranger. She drew back and picked up her smallbelongings. For a moment Stanwood thought she was going. 

"Don't you get your mail out here any more?" she asked. 

"Not very regularly, " he replied, guiltily conscious of possessing twoor three illegible letters from his daughter which he had not yet hadthe enterprise to decipher. 

"Then you did not expect me?"

"Well, no, I can't say I did. But"--with a praiseworthy if notaltogether successful effort--"I am very glad to see you, my dear. "

The first half of this speech was so much more convincing than the last, that the girl felt an unpleasant stricture about her throat, and knewherself to be on the verge of tears. 

"I could go back, " she said, with a pathetic little air of dignity. "Perhaps you would not have any place to put me if I should stay. "

"Oh, yes; I can put you in the museum"--and he looked at her with thefirst glimmer of appreciation, feeling that she would be a creditableaddition to his collection of curiosities. 

Elizabeth met his look with one of quick comprehension, and then shebroke into a laugh which saved the day. It was a pleasant laugh initself, and furthermore, if she had not laughed just at that junctureshe would surely have disgraced herself forever by a burst of tears. 

Cy Willows, meanwhile, believing that "the gal and her pa" would rathernot be observed at their first meeting, had discreetly busied himselfwith the two neat trunks which his passenger had brought. 

"Hullo, Jake!" he remarked, as the ranchman appeared at the door; "thisis a great day for you, ain't it?"

The two men took hold of one of the trunks together, and carried it intothe museum. When the door opened, Willows almost dropped his end fromsheer amazement. He stood in the middle of the room, staring from Venusto altar-cloth, from altar-cloth to censer. 

"Gosh!" he remarked at last. "Your gal's struck it rich!"

The "gal" took it more quietly. To her, the master of this fineapartment was not Jake Stanwood, the needy ranchman, but Jacob Stanwood, Esq. , gentleman and scholar, to the manor born. She stepped to thewindow, and looked out across the shimmering plain to the rugged peaksand the warm blue slopes of "the range, " and a sigh of admirationescaped her. 

"Oh, papa!" she cried, "how beautiful it is!"

"And I'll be durned if 't wa' n't the mountings the gal was looking atall the time!" Cy Willows declared, when reporting upon the astonishingsituation at the ranch. 

Stanwood himself was somewhat impressed by the girl's attitude. Themuseum had come to seem to his long unaccustomed mind a very splendidapartment indeed. When, a few minutes later, Elizabeth joined him in therudely furnished living-room of the cabin, he felt something very likechagrin at her first observation. 

"Oh, papa!" she cried. "I'm so glad the rest of it is a real ranchhouse! I've always wanted to see just how a real ranchman lives!"

He thought ruefully that she would soon learn, to her cost, how a verypoverty-stricken ranchman lived. His examination of the larder had notbeen encouraging. 

"I am afraid we shall have rather poor pickings for supper, my dear, " hesaid apologetically. He called her "my dear" from the first; it seemedmore non-committal and impersonal than the use of her name. He had notcalled a young lady by her first name for fifteen years. 

"I have my dinner in the middle of the day, " he went on, "and I seem tohave run short of provisions this evening. "

"I suppose you have a man-cook, " she remarked, quite ignoring hisapology. 

"Yes, " he replied grimly. "I have the honor to fill that office myself. "

"Why; isn't there anybody else about the place?"

"No. I'm 'out of help' just now, as old Madam Gallup used to say. Idon't suppose you remember old Madam Gallup. "

"Oh, yes, I do! Mama used to have her to dinner every Sunday. She lookedlike a duchess, but when she died people said she died of starvation. That was the year after you went away, " she added thoughtfully. 

It seemed very odd to hear this tall young woman say "mama, " and torealize that it was that other Elizabeth that she was laying claim to. Why, the girl seemed almost as much of a woman as her mother. Fifteenyears! A long time to be sure. He ought to have known better than tohave slipped into reminiscences at the very outset. Uncomfortablethings, always--uncomfortable things!

He would not let her help him get the supper, and with a subtleperception of the irritation which he was at such pains to conceal, sheforbore to press the point, and went, instead, and sat in the doorway, looking dreamily across the prairie. 

Stanwood noted her choice of a seat, with a curious mixture of jealousyand satisfaction. He should be obliged either to give up his seat, or toshare it for awhile; but then it was gratifying to know that the girlhad a heart for that view. 

And the girl sat there wondering vaguely why she was not homesick. Everything had been different from her anticipations. No one to meet herat Springtown; no letter, no message at the hotel. She had had somedifficulty in learning how to reach Cameron City, and when, at last, shehad found herself in the forlorn little prairie train, steaming eastwardacross the strange yellow expanse, unbroken by the smallest landmark, she had been assailed by strange doubts and questionings. At CameronCity, again, no longed-for, familiar face had appeared among theloungers at the station, and the situation and her part in it seemedmost uncomfortable. When, however, she had made known her identity, andword was passed that this was "Jake Stanwood's gal, " there were promptoffers of help, and she had soon secured the services of Cy Willows andhis "team. "

As she sat in the doorway, watching the glowing light, the sun droppedbehind the Peak. She remembered how Cy had said he "hadn't never heardJake Stanwood speak of havin' a gal of his own. " The shadow of the greatmountain had fallen upon the plain, and a chill, half imaginary, halfreal, possessed itself of her. Was she homesick after all? She stood upand stepped out upon the prairie, which had never yielded an inch ofspace before the cabin door. Off to the southward was a field ofhalf-grown alfalfa that had taken on a weird, uncanny green in the firstsunless light. She looked across to the remote prairie, and there, onthe far horizon, the sunlight still shone, a golden circlet. No. She wasnot homesick; anything but that! She had been homesick almost ever sinceshe could remember, but now she was in her father's house and everythingmust be well. 

When Stanwood came to look for her he found her surrounded by theassiduous collies, examining with much interest the tall, ungainlywindmill, with its broad wooden flaps. 

On the whole, their first evening together was a pleasant one. Stanwoodlistened with amused appreciation to the account of her journey. Shewould be a credit to his name, he thought, out there in the old familiarworld which he should never see again. 

He had relinquished to her the seat on the door-step, and himself sat ona saw-horse outside the door, where the lamp-light struck his face. Herhead and figure presented themselves to him as a silhouette, and somehowthat suited him better than to see her features distinctly; it seemed tokeep their relation back where it had always been, a sort of impersonaloutline. 

Elizabeth, for her part, thought that, for all his shabby clothes andthin, sunburnt face, her father was more manifestly a gentleman than anyman she had ever seen. 

She learned several things in the course of that conversation. She foundthat when she touched upon her reasons for coming to him, her feelingthat they were only two and that they ought to be together, his eyeswandered and he looked bored; when she spoke of her mother he seemeduncomfortable. 

Was she like her mother? No, he said, she was not in the least like hermother; he did not see that she took after anybody in particular. Then, as if to escape the subject, was her Uncle Nicholas as rabid ateetotaller as ever?

He liked best to hear about her school days and of the gay doings of thepast year, her first year of "society. "

"And you don't like society?" he asked at last, with a quizzical glanceat her pretty profile. She had turned her eyes from the contemplation ofhis face, and seemed to be conjuring up interesting visions out of thedarkness. 

"Yes, I do!" she said with decision. 

"You won't get much society out here, " he remarked, and his spiritsrose again. Of course she would be bored to death without it. 

"I like some things better than society, " she replied. 

"For instance?"

She turned her face full upon him, and boldly said, "You. "

"The deuce you do!" he cried, and was instantly conscious that it wasthe second time that he had forgotten himself. 

A little crinkle appeared in the silhouette of a cheek, and she said, "Ido like to hear you say 'the deuce. ' I don't believe Uncle Nicholas eversaid 'the deuce' in his life. "

"Nick was always a bore, " Stanwood rejoined, more pleased with theimplied disparagement of his pet aversion than with the very out-spokencompliment to himself. 

"I think Uncle Nicholas has done his duty by me, " Elizabeth remarkeddemurely, "but I am glad he has got through. I came of age last Monday, the day I started for Colorado. "

"When did you decide to come?"

"About five years ago. I always meant to start on the 7th of June ofthis year. "

"You make your plans a long way ahead. What is the next step on theprogram?"

"I haven't the least idea. "

"For such a very decided young lady, isn't that rather odd?"

"There are some things one can't decide all by one's self. "

"Such as?"

"The next step. "

"Perhaps you will find it easier after a week or two of ranching. "

"You don't think I am going to like ranching?"

"Hardly. "

"Don't you like it?"

"Oh, I'm an old man, with my life behind me. "

The lamp-light on his face was stronger than he was aware; Elizabeth sawa good deal in it which he was not in the habit of displaying to hisfellow-creatures. She stooped, and patted one of the collies, and toldhim she thought she really ought to go to bed; upon which Stanwood rosewith alacrity, and conducted her to the museum, which had been turnedinto a very habitable sleeping-room. 

Having closed the door upon his latest "curiosity, " Stanwood proceededto perform a solemn rite in the light of the stars. He took his demijohnof old rye, and, followed by the six collies, he carried it out a fewrods back of the cabin, where he gravely emptied its contents upon thesandy soil. At the first remonstrating gulp of the demijohn, whichseemed to be doing its best to arrest the flow, a strong penetratingaroma assailed his nostrils, but he never flinched. Great as hisconfidence was in his own supremacy in his peculiarly intimate relationswith old rye, he did not wish to "take any chances" with himself. 

The dogs stood around in an admiring circle, and sniffed perplexedly atthe strange libation which was clearly not intended for their kind. Didthey realize that it was poured before the altar of parental devotion?They stood there wagging their tails with great vigor, and never takingtheir eyes off their master's countenance. Perhaps they appreciated theodd, half-deprecating, half-satirical expression of the face they knewso well. It would have been a pity if somebody had not done so. It is tobe feared, however, that the remark with which Stanwood finally turnedaway from the odorous pool and walked toward the house was beyond thecomprehension of the canine intellect. To himself, at least, theremorseful pang was very real with which he said, half aloud, "Pity towaste good liquor like that! Some poor wretch might have enjoyed it. "

The morning following his visitor's arrival, the two drove together inthe rattling old ranch wagon to Cameron City. Elizabeth was enchantedwith the ingenious introduction of odd bits of rope into the harness, bymeans of which the whole establishment was kept from falling apart. Shethought the gait of the lazy old nag the most amusing exhibitionpossible, and as for the erratic jolts and groans of the wagon, itstruck her that this was a new form of exercise, the pleasurableexcitement and unexpectedness of which surpassed all former experiences. At Cameron City she made purchase of a saddle-horse, a very well-madebronco with dramatic possibilities in his eye. 

"I don't know where you will get a sidesaddle, " Stanwood had demurredwhen the purchase was first proposed. 

"A sidesaddle? I have it in my trunk. "

"You don't say so! I should think it would jam your bonnets. "

"Oh, I packed it with my ranch outfit. "

So they jogged and rattled over to Cameron City, where Elizabeth hadmade the acquisition, not only of a saddle-horse, but of two or threemost interesting new acquaintances. 

"I do like the people so much, papa, " she declared as they drove out oftown, having left the new horse to be shod. 

"You don't mind their calling you 'Jake Stanwood's gal'?"

"No, indeed! I think it's perfectly lovely!"

"It cannot but be gratifying to me, " Stanwood remarked, in thehalf-satirical tone he found easiest in conversation with this nearrelative; "in fact, I may say it _is_ gratifying to me, to find that theimpression is mutually favorable. Halstead, the ruffianly lookingsheep-raiser who called you 'Madam, ' confided to me that you were thefirst woman he had ever met who knew the difference between a horse anda cow; and Simmons, the light-haired man who looks like a deacon, butwho is probably the worst thief in four counties, told me I ought to beproud of 'that gal'!"

"Oh, papa, what gorgeous compliments! Don't you want a swap?"

"A what?"

"A swap. That's what we call it when we pay back one compliment withanother. "

He turned and looked at her with an amused approval which was almostpaternal. 

"It is most refreshing, " he said, "to have the vocabulary of the effeteWest enlivened with these breezy expressions from the growing East. "

"But, papa, you must really like slang, now really! Uncle Nicholas couldnever tolerate it. "

"There you strike a chord! I desire you to speak nothing but slang ifNick objects. "

Agreeable badinage had always been a favorite pastime with JacobStanwood. If Elizabeth had but guessed it, a taste of it was worth moreto him than all the filial devotion she held in reserve. 

"And now for the swap, " she said. "You are not modest, I hope?"

"Heaven forbid!"

"Well, then! Miss Hunniman--you remember Miss Hunniman? She used to makemama's dresses, and now she makes mine. She told me only a year ago thatwhenever she read about Sir Galahad or the Chevalier Bayard or Richardthe Lion-hearted, she always thought of you; which was veryinconvenient, because it made her mix them up, and she never couldremember which of them went to the Crusades and which of them did not!"

Anything in the nature of a reminiscence was sure to jar upon Stanwood. He preferred to consider the charming young person beside him as anagreeable episode; he half resented any reminder of the permanence oftheir relation. Therefore, in response to this little confidence, whichcaused the quaint figure of Miss Hunniman to present itself with ahundred small, thronging associations of the past, he only remarkeddrily:

"I suppose you know that if you stay out here any length of time youwill spoil your complexion. "

Elizabeth was impressionable enough to feel the full significance ofsuch hints and side-thrusts as were cautiously administered to her. Shewas quite aware that she and her father were totally at odds on the mainpoint at issue, that he had as yet no intention of sharing his solitudewith her for any length of time. As the days went by she perceivedsomething else. She was not long in discovering that he was extremelypoor, and she became aware in some indefinable wise that he heldexistence very cheap. Had her penetration been guided by a form ofexperience which she happily lacked, she might have suspected stillanother factor in the situation which had an unacknowledged influenceupon Stanwood's attitude. 

Meanwhile their relation continued to be a friendly one. They were, infact, peculiarly congenial, and they could not well live togetherwithout discovering it. 

They rode together, they cooked together, they set up a target, and hadfamous shooting-matches. Elizabeth learned to milk the cows and makebutter, to saddle her bronco and mount him from the ground. They taughtthe pups tricks, they tamed a family of prairie-dogs, they had a planfor painting the windmill. By the end of a week Stanwood was in suchgood humor, that he made a marked concession. 

One of the glowing, glimmering sunsets they both delighted in was goingon, beautifying the prairie as warmly as the sky. Stanwood came from theshed where he had been feeding the horses, and found his visitor seatedin the doorway. He stood observing her critically for a few moments. Shemade an attractive picture there in the warm sunset light. Before hecould check himself he found himself wishing that her mother could seeher. Ah! If her mother were here too, it would be almost worth while tobegin life over again. 

The girl, unconscious of his scrutiny, sat gazing at the view he loved. As he watched her tranquil happy face he felt reconciled and softened. Her hands lay palm downward on her lap. They were shapely hands, largeand generous; a good deal tanned and freckled now. There was somethingabout them which he had not noticed before; and almost involuntarily histhoughts got themselves spoken. 

"Do you know, Elizabeth, your _thumbs_ are like your mother's!"

Elizabeth felt that it was a concession, but she had learned wisdom. Shedid not turn her eyes from the range, and she only said quietly, "I amglad of that, papa. "

Emboldened by the consciousness of her own discretion, she ventured, later in the evening, to broach a subject fraught with risks. Havingarmed herself with a piece of embroidery, and placed the lamp betweenherself and the object of her diplomacy, she remarked in a casualmanner:

"I suppose, papa, that Uncle Nicholas has told you how rich we are. "

"Nick wrote me with his usual consciousness of virtue that hisinvestments for you had turned out well. "

"Our income is twice what it was ten years ago. "

"I congratulate you, my dear. I only regret the moral effect upon Nick. "

"And I congratulate _you_, papa. Of course it's really yours as long asyou live. "

"I think you have been misinformed, my dear. It was your mother'sproperty, and is now yours. "

"Oh, no, papa! You have a life-interest in it. I am surprised that youdid not know that. "

"And I am surprised that you should be, or pretend to be, ignorant thatthe property stands in your name. I have no more concern in itthan--Miss Hunniman. "

"But, papa!"

"We won't discuss the matter, if you please, my dear. We can gainnothing by discussion. "

"I don't want to discuss it, papa, " taking a critical survey of herembroidery; "but if you won't go snacks, I won't. Uncle Nicholas told menever to say 'go snacks, '" she added, with a side glance around the edgeof the lamp-shade. 

His face relaxed so far that she ventured to add: "Uncle Nicholas wouldbe furious if we were to go snacks. "

Stanwood smiled appreciatively. 

"Nothing could be more painful to me than to miss an opportunity ofmaking Nick furious, " he said; "but I have not lived fifty years withouthaving learned to immolate myself and my dearest ambitions upon theappropriate altars. "

After which eloquent summing-up, he turned the conversation into anotherchannel. 

It was not long after this that Stanwood found himself experiencing apeculiar depression of spirits, which he positively refused to trace toits true source. He told himself that he wanted his freedom; he wasgetting tired of Elizabeth; he must send her home. It was nonsense forher to stay any longer, spoiling her complexion and his temper; it wasreally out of the question to have this thing go on any longer. Havingcome to which conclusion, it annoyed him very much to find himselfenjoying her society. His depression of spirits was intermittent. 

One morning, when he found her sitting on the saw-horse, with the newbronco taking his breakfast from a bag she held in her lap, the sunshining full in her clear young face, health and happiness in every lineof her figure, a positive thrill of fatherly pride and affection seizedhim. But the reaction was immediate. 

He turned on his heel, disgusted at this refutation of his theories. Hewas wretched and uncomfortable as he had never been before, and if itwas not this intruding presence that made him so, what was it? Of coursehe was getting tired of her; what could be more natural? For fifteenyears he had not known the pressure of a bond. Of course it was irksometo him! He really must get rid of it. 

His moodiness did not escape Elizabeth, nor did she fail to note therecent accentuating of those lines in his face, which had at firststruck her painfully, but which she had gradually become accustomed to. In her own mind she concluded that her father had lived too long at thishigh altitude, and that she must persuade him to leave it. 

"Papa, " she said, as they stood for a moment in the doorway aftersupper, "don't you think it would be good fun to go abroad this autumn?"

His drooping spirit revived; she was getting tired of ranching. 

"A capital plan, my dear. Just what you need, " he replied, with moreanimation than he had shown since morning. 

"Let us start pretty soon, " she went on persuasively, deceived by hisready acquiescence. 

"Us? My dear, what are you thinking of? I' m tired to death of Europe!Nothing would induce me to go. "

"Oh, well. Then I don't care anything about it, " she said. "We'll staywhere we are, of course. I am as happy and contented as I could beanywhere. "

Stanwood turned upon her with a sudden, fierce irritation. 

"This is nonsense!" he cried. "You are not to bury yourself alive outhere! I won't permit it! The sooner you go, _the better for both ofus_!"

His voice was harsh and strained; it was the tone of it more than thewords themselves that cut her to the heart. He did not want her; it hadall been a miserable failure. She controlled herself with a strongeffort. Her voice did not tremble; there was only the pathos ofrepression in it as she answered: "Very well, papa; perhaps I have hadmy share. "

Stanwood thought, and rebelled against the thought, that he had neverseen a finer thing than her manner of replying. For himself, he felt asif he had come to the dregs of life and should like to fling the cupaway. 

They occupied themselves that evening a good deal with the collies, andthey parted early; and then it was that Stanwood was brought face toface with himself. 

For half an hour or more he made a pretence of reading the papers, andlooking at the pictures in a stray magazine, thus keeping himself atarm's length, as it were. But after a while even that restraint becameunendurable. He went to the back door of the house and opened it. Thecollies appeared in a delighted group to rush into the house. Hesuffered them to do so, and then, stepping out, he closed the door uponthem and stood outside. There was a strong north wind, and, for amoment, its breath refreshed him like a dash of cold water. Only for amoment, however. The sense of oppression returned upon him, and he feltpowerless to shake it off. With the uncertain, wavering step of asleep-walker, he moved across to the spot where he had poured hislibation three weeks ago. He stood there, strangely fascinated, glancingonce or twice, furtively over his shoulder. Then, hardly knowing what hedid, he got down on his knees and put his face to the ground. Was it thetaste or the smell that he craved? He could not have told. He only knewthat he knelt there and pressed his face to the earth, and that asickening sense of disappointment came over him at finding all trace ofit gone. 

He got up from his knees, very shaky and weak, and then it was that helooked himself in the face and knew what the ignominious craving meant. He slunk into the house, cowed and shamed. The sight of the dogs, huddled about the door inside, gave him a guilty start, and he drovethem angrily out. Then he got himself to bed in the dark. He lay therein the dark, wondering foolishly what Jacob Stanwood would say if heknew what had happened; till, suddenly, he became aware that his mindwas wandering, upon which he laughed harshly. Elizabeth heard the laugh, and a vague fear seized upon her. She got up and listened at her door, but the noise was not repeated. Perhaps it was a coyote outside; theysometimes made strange noises. 

She went to the window and drew back the Persian altar-cloth. The windcame from the other side of the house; she had been too preoccupied tonotice it before. Now it shook the house rudely, and then went howlingand roaring across the plains. It was strange to hear it and to feel itsforce, and yet to see no evidence of it: not a tree to wave itsbranches, not a cloud to scurry through the sky; only the vast levelprairie and the immovable hills, and up above them a sky, liquid andserene, with steady stars shining in its depths, all unconcerned withthe raving wind. She felt comforted and strengthened, and when she wentback to bed she rested in the sense of comfort. But she did not sleep. 

She was hardly aware that she was not sleeping, as the hours passedunmarked, until, in a sudden lull of the wind, a voice struck her ear; avoice speaking rapidly and eagerly. She sprang to her feet. The voicecame from her father's room. Had some one lost his way in the night, andhad her father taken him in? It did not sound like a conversation; itwas monotonous, unvarying, unnatural. She hastily threw on adressing-gown, and crept to her father's door. She recognized his voicenow, but the words were incoherent. He was ill, he was delirious. Therewas no light within. She opened the door and whispered "Papa, " but hedid not hear her. In a moment she had lighted a lamp; another moment, and she stood beside him. He was sitting straight up in his bed, talkingand gesticulating violently; his eyes glittered in the lamp-light, hisface showed haggard and intense. 

Elizabeth placed the lamp upon a stand close at hand. 

"Papa, " she said, "don't you know me? I'm Elizabeth. "

He caught at the name. 

"You lie!" he cried shrilly. "Elizabeth's dead! I won't have her talkedabout! She's dead, I say! Hush-sh! Hush-sh! Don't wake her up. Sleep's agood thing--a good thing. "

On the table where she had placed the lamp was a tiny bottle marked"chloral. " There was also a glass of water upset upon the table. Stanwood's clothing and other belongings lay scattered upon the floor. She had never before seen his room disordered. Well! he was ill, andhere she was to take care of him. 

He was not talking so fast now, but what he said was even moreincoherent. The light and the presence of another person in the roomseemed to confuse and trouble him. She took his hand and felt the pulse. The hand was hot, and grasped hers convulsively. She put his coat overhis shoulders, and then she sat with her arm about him, and gradually hestopped talking, and turned his face to hers with a questioning look. 

"What can I do for you, papa? Tell me if there is anything I can do foryou. "

"Do for me?" he repeated. 

"Yes, dear. Is there nothing I can do, nothing I can get for you?"

"Get for me?"

He drew off from her a little, and a crafty look, utterly foreign to theman's nature, came into the tense face. 

"I don't suppose you've got a drop of whisky!" he said insinuatingly. 

The sound of the word upon his own lips seemed to bring the excitementback on him. "Whisky! Yes, that's it! I don't care who knows it! Whisky!Whisky!" He fairly hissed the words. 

For the first time since she came into the room Elizabeth wasfrightened. 

"I think you ought to have a doctor, " she said. 

She felt him lean against her again, and she gently lowered him to thepillow. His head sank back, and he lay there with white lips and closedlids. She knelt beside him, watching his every breath. After a fewminutes he opened his eyes. They were dull, but no longer wild. 

"Ought you not to have a doctor, papa dear?" she asked. 

Intelligence came struggling back into his face. 

"No, my dear, " he said, gathering himself for a strong effort. "I havehad attacks like this before. "

"And a stimulant is all you need?"

"All I need, " he muttered. His eyes closed, and his breath came even anddeep. 

Elizabeth knelt there, thankful that he slept. How white his lips were!How spent he looked! He had asked for whisky. Perhaps even in hisdelirium he knew what he wanted; perhaps a stimulant was all he needed. Of course it was! How stupid not to have understood!

She hurried to her room and got a small brandy-flask that had been givenher for the journey. She had emptied it for a sick man on the train. 

She went back to her father. He was sleeping heavily. She glanced at hiswatch lying upon the table beside the chloral bottle. One o'clock! Shewondered whether the "store" would be open. She should hate to go to asaloon. But then, that was no matter. If her father needed a stimulanthe must have it. She dressed herself quickly, and put her purse and thebrandy-flask into her pocket. Then she hurried to the shed, where shesaddled the bronco. Her father had once told her that she would havemade a first-rate cowboy. Well, now was her chance to prove it. 

The collies, who had taken refuge from the wind on the south side of theshed, came trotting in at the open door, and assembled, a curious littleshadowy group, about her. But they soon dropped off to sleep, and whenshe led the bronco out and closed the door upon them, a feeble wag of atail or two was all the evidence of interest they gave. 

She twisted the bridle round a post and slipped into the house for onemore look at her patient. He was sleeping profoundly. She placed thelamp upon the floor in a corner, so that the bed was in shadow. Then shecame back to the bedside and watched the sleeper again for a moment. Shetouched his forehead and found it damp and cool. The fever was past. Perhaps he was right; there was no need of a doctor--it was nothingserious. Perhaps the stuff in that little bottle had done somethingqueer to him. A stimulant was all he needed. But he needed that, for hisface was pitifully pallid and drawn. 

A moment later the bronco was bearing her swiftly through the night, hishoof-falls echoing in a dull rhythm. The wind still came in gusts, blowing straight into her face, but it was warm and pleasant. When shehad passed through the gate of the ranch the road went between wirefences, straight north to Cameron City. Now and then a group of horses, roused, perhaps, by her approach, stood with their heads over the fencewatching her pass, while the wind stretched their manes and tails outstraight to one side. She wished she could stop and make friends withthem, but there was no time for that. Her father might wake up and callfor her. So on they sped, she and the bronco, waking the cattle oneither side of the road, startling more than one prowling coyote, invisible to them, causing more than one prairie-dog, snug in his hole, to fancy it must be morning. And the great night, encompassing theworld, gleaming in the heavens, brooding upon the earth, made itselfknown to her for the first time. Elizabeth never forgot that ridethrough the beautiful brooding night. Nature seemed larger and deeperand grander to her ever after. 

As they came among the houses of the town she reined in the bronco andwent quietly, lest she should wake the people. There was a light burningin the room over the store, and the window was open. A woman answeredher summons. It was the wife of the storekeeper. Her husband was absent, she said, and she was up with a sick baby. She readily filled the littleflask, and was sympathetic and eager to help. Shouldn't she sendsomebody over to the ranch? There wasn't any doctor in Cameron City, butCy Willows knew a heap about physic. 

No. Elizabeth said her father was better already, only he seemed inneed of a stimulant. No, she did not want an escort. The night waslovely, and she wouldn't miss her solitary ride home for anything. Shewas so glad Mrs. Stiles had the whisky. It would be just what her fatherneeded when he waked up. 

And when, some hours later, Jacob Stanwood awoke, he found his daughtersitting beside him in the gray dawn. 

"Why, Elizabeth!" he said, "is anything the matter? Did I disturb you?"

She leaned toward him, and laid her hand on his. 

"You were ill in the night, papa, and asked for a stimulant, and I gotit for you. "

"A stimulant?" he repeated vaguely. "What stimulant? Where did you getit?"

"I got it at the store. It's whisky. "

"Whisky?" he cried, with a sudden, eager gleam. 

Elizabeth was enchanted to find that she had done the right thing. 

"Here it is, papa, " she said, drawing the flask from her pocket, andpouring a little of the contents into a glass that stood ready. 

He watched her with that intense, eager gleam. 

"Fill it up! Fill it up!" he cried impatiently. "A drop like that is nogood to a man. "

He was sitting straight up again, just as she found him in the night. Hereached his thin hand for the glass, which he clutched tightly. Thesmell of the liquor was strong in the room. His eyes were glitteringwith excitement. 

The girl stood beside him, contemplating with affectionate delight thesuccess of her experiment. Her utter innocence and unsuspiciousnesssmote him to the heart. Something stayed his hand so that he did noteven lift the glass to his lips. Slowly, with his eyes fixed upon thesweet, young face, he extended his arm out over the side of the bed, theglass shaking plainly in his hold. She did not notice it; she waslooking into his face which had softened strangely. 

"Elizabeth, " he said. 

There was a sound of breaking glass, and a strong smell of liquorpouring out upon the floor. 

"O papa!" she cried, distressed. 

He had sunk back against the pillows, pale with exhaustion. But when shelifted the fragments of the glass, saying: "Isn't it a pity, papa?" heonly answered in his usual tone, "There's no harm done, my dear. Idon't believe it was just what I needed, after all. "

He smiled with a new, indescribable sweetness and weariness. 

"I think I could sleep, now, " he said. 

At noon Stanwood was quite himself again; himself and more, he thought, with some surprise. He would not have owned that it was a sense ofvictory that had put new life into his veins. Victory over a vulgarpassion must partake somewhat of the vulgarity of the passion itself. No, Stanwood was not the man to glory in such a conquest. But he could, at last, glory in this daughter of his. 

As she told him with sparkling eyes of her beautiful ride through thenight, through the beautiful brooding night, her courage and herinnocence seemed to him like a fair, beneficent miracle. But he made nocomment upon her story. He only sat in the doorway, looking down theroad where he had watched her approach a few weeks ago, and when shesaid, noting his abstraction, "A penny for your thoughts, papa!" heasked, in a purely conversational tone, "Elizabeth, "--she always lovedto hear him say "Elizabeth, "--"Elizabeth, do you think it would makeNick very mad indeed if we were to go snacks?"

"Mad as hops!" she cried. 

"Then let's do it!"

Elizabeth beamed. 

"And Elizabeth, there's no place like Switzerland in summer. Let's packup and go!"

"Let us!" she answered, very softly, with only a little exultant tremoron the words. 

She never guessed all that she had won that day; she only knew that lifestretched on before her, a long, sunny pathway, where she and her fathermight walk together in the daily and hourly good-comradeship that sheloved. 

IV. 

AT THE KEITH RANCH. 

The dance was in full swing--a vehement, rhythmic, dead-in-earnestranch dance. Eight couples on the floor tramped or tiptoed, as the casemight be, but always in perfect time with the two unmelodious fiddles. The tune, if tune it might be called, went over and over and over again, with the monotonous persistency of a sawmill, dominating the rhythmictread of the dancers, but not subduing the fancy of the caller-out. 

The caller-out for the moment was a curly-headed lad of twenty, with ashrewd, good-humored face. He stood in a slouching attitude, oneshoulder much higher than the other, and as he gave forth, in a singsongvoice, his emphatic rhymed directions, his fingers played idly with thered-silk lacings of his brown flannel shirt. To an imaginativelooker-on those idly toying fingers had an indefinable air of beingvery much at home with the trigger of the six-shooter at the lad's belt. So, at least, it struck Lem Keith. 

 "Swing him round for old Mother Flannigan! You've swung him so nice, now swing him again, again! On to the next, and swing that gent! Now straight back, and swing your own man again!"

Tramp, tramp, tramp went the rhythmic feet; diddle-diddle-dee went thefiddles. There was not much talking among either dancers or sitters-out. Occasionally one of the babies in the adjoining bedroom waked andwailed, but on the whole they were well-behaved babies. There they layon the bed, six in a row, while their mothers eagerly snatched their bitof pleasure at the cost of a night's sleep. 

Lemuel Keith, joint host with his brother on this occasion, sat on abench against the wall, contemplating with wonder the energy of theseoverworked women. Beside him sat the husband of one of them, a tall, gaunt ranchman, with his legs crossed, poising upon a bony knee an atomof humanity in a short plaided woollen frock. 

"How old is your baby?" asked Lem, mindful of his duties as host. 

"Four months, " was the laconic reply; and as though embarrassed by thepersonal nature of the inquiry, the man rose and repaired to a remotecorner, where he began a solemn waltz with his offspring in his arms. 

It was an April evening, and the windows were open to the south. A coolnight-breeze came in, grateful alike to dancers and lookers-on. Lem satwatching his twin brother Joe, who was taking his turn at the dance. Lemusually watched Joe when he had the chance; for if the brothers werebewilderingly alike in appearance, they were animated by a spirit sounlike, that Joe's every look and action was a source of interest toLem. Indeed, it was his taste for Joe's society that had made a Coloradoranchman of him. Nature had intended Lemuel Keith for a student, andthen, by a strange oversight, had made him the twin-brother of afascinating daredevil for whom the East was too narrow. 

Lem sat and watched Joe, and observed the progress of the dance, philosophizing over the scene in a way peculiar to himself. For his ownpart, he never danced if he could help himself, but he found the dancinghuman being a fruitful subject of contemplation. Joe's partner, inparticular, amused and interested him. She was a rather dressy youngperson, with a rose-leaf complexion and a simpering mouth. Rose-leafcomplexions are rare on the sun-drenched, wind-swept prairies, and themore effective for that. The possessor of this one, fully aware of heradvantage, was displaying, for her partner's delectation, the mostwonderful airs and graces. She glided about upon the points of her toes;she gave him her delicately poised finger-tips with a birdlike coynesswhich the glance of her beady black eyes belied. Joe was in his element, playing the bold yet insinuating cavalier. 

Lem Keith found a fascination in this first ranch dance of his. He likedthe heartiness of the whole performance; he enjoyed the sharp-cutindividuality of the people, their eccentricities of costume anddeportment; he was of too sensitive a fibre not to feel the dramaticpossibilities of the occasion. "Tenderfoot" as he was, the fact couldnot escape him that a man in a flannel shirt, with a pistol at hisbelt, --and most of the men were thus equipped, --was more than likely tohave a touch of lawlessness about him. 

[Illustration: THE KEITH RANCH. ]

There was a pause between the two figures of the dance. Joe had takenhis partner's fan, which he was gently waving to and fro before her face. She stood panting with affected exhaustion, glancing archly at her new"young man" from under studiously fluttering eyelids. The gaunt father, having stopped waltzing, had discovered that the woollen-clad baby wasfast asleep on his shoulder. Over in another corner, under a window, wasa red-faced cowboy, slumbering as tranquilly as the baby, his head sunkon his breast, a genial forelock waving lightly in the breeze. Thefiddlers resumed their function. "Swing your pards!" cried thecurly-headed boy; and once more all was commotion. 

The room seemed hot and crowded. Lem had shifted his position, and wasstanding opposite the windows. He looked toward them, and his glance wasarrested. In the square of light cast outside by the lamps within was asinister, malignant face. It was the face of a man whom the Keith boyshad seen to-night for the first time. He had paid his seventy-five cents, and had received his numbered ticket like the others, by which simpleceremony all the requirements of ranch etiquette were fulfilled. BubQuinn they called him--Bub Quinn from the Divide. Rather a nice-lookingfellow, the brothers had agreed, attracted by his brilliant smile andhearty hand-shake. It was Bub Quinn who had brought the girl that Joewas dancing with, and now that Lem came to think of it, he could notremember having seen her dance with any one else, besides Quinn himself. Lem's heart gave a heavy thump almost before his brain had grasped thesituation. Yet the situation was very plain. It was Joe and his littlefool of a partner that those malignant eyes were following. 

They were light eyes, looking out from under level light eyebrows, andLem frankly quaked at sight of them. The man's face was clean-shaven, showing high cheekbones and a firm, handsome mouth. He stood in anindolent attitude, with his hands in his pockets; but all the recklesspassion of the desperado was concentrated in the level glance of thosemenacing eyes. 

"Meet your partner with a double _sashay_, " cried the curly-headed boy. Diddle-diddle-dee squeaked the fiddles. Lem looked again at his brother. He was flirting outrageously. 

A door opened behind Lem, and a woman called him by name. He steppedinto the kitchen, where two of his prairie neighbors were busy with thesupper. It was Mrs. Luella Jenkins who had summoned him, kind, queer, warm-hearted Mrs. Luella. The "Keith boys" were giving their firstdance, and she had undertaken to engineer the supper. 

"We've got the coffee on, " she remarked, pointing over her shoulder at acouple of gallon-cans on the stove, from which an agreeable aroma wasrising. 

"That's first-rate, " said Lem, who had a much more distinct vision ofBub Quinn's eyes than of the mammoth tin cans. "Is there anything I cando to help?"

"Well, I dunno, " Mrs. Luella ruminated. Her speech was as slow as hermovements were quick. "I was thinkin' 't was 'most a pity you hadn't hadbun sandwiches. " She looked regretfully at the rapidly growing pile ofthe ordinary kind with which the table was being loaded. "The buns tastekind o' sweet and pleasant, mixed up with the ham. "

Through the closed door came the scraping of the indefatigable fiddles. "Hold her tight, and run her down the middle!" shouted the voice of thecaller-out. 

"Over to Watts's last fall, " Mrs. Luella rambled on, slicing ham thewhile at a great rate, "they had bun sandwiches, and in the top of arybun there was a toothpick stickin' up. If you've got toothpicks enoughabout the place, we might try it. It looks real tasty. "

"Mrs. Jenkins, " Lem broke in, "do you know Bub Quinn?"

"No; nor I don't want to, " Luella answered curtly. 

"Why not?"

"He's too handy with his shooting-irons to suit my taste. "

Then, resuming the thread of her discourse: "You don't think, now, you've got toothpicks enough? They'd set things off real nice. " But Lemhad departed. 

"I s'pose he's kind o' flustered with givin' their first dance, " shesaid apologetically to her coadjutor among the sandwiches. 

Lem was a great favorite with Mrs. Luella. She liked him better than shedid Joe. She was one of the few people who could, at a glance, tell thetwo brothers apart. She always spoke of Lem as the "little chap, " thoughhe was in fact precisely of a height with his brother; and she gave asthe reason for the preference, that "the little chap wasn't a ramper. "Unfortunately for Lem, perhaps, she was right. He was not a ramper. 

As Lem stepped out into the other room, the caller-out was shouting, "Promen-_ade_ all--you know where!" The sets were breaking up, and Joewith his best manner was leading his partner to a seat. The face hadvanished from the window. Bub Quinn was striding across the room, andnow planted himself in front of the recreant pair. 

"You're to come with me, Aggy, " he growled. 

"Pray don't mention it!" cried Joe, relinquishing the girl to Quinn witha mocking reverence. 

Shrugging her shoulders, and pouting, Aggy moved away with her captor;not, however, without a parting glance over her shoulder at Joe. The twobrothers met at the kitchen-door. 

"I say, Joe, " Lem begged, "don't dance with that girl again. "

"And why not!"

"You wouldn't ask why not if you had seen that ruffian's face at thewindow. "

"Didn't I see it, though?" scoffed Joe, in high spirits, and Lem knewthat he had blundered. 

A new caller-out had taken the floor, and was shouting, "Seventeen totwenty-four, get on the floor and dance!"

The pauses are short at a ranch dance, for each man, having a right inonly one dance out of three or four, is eager for his turn. The women onthis particular occasion might have been glad of a rest, for there wereonly ten of them to satisfy the demands of all the men, and steadydancing from eight o'clock to three is no light task. Nevertheless, eachone rose with sufficient alacrity in response to the polite inquiry, "Will you assist me with this dance?" and in a few minutes the samemany-colored woollen gowns, and much befrizzled heads, which haddiversified the last sets, were lending lustre to the present dance. 

Neither Bub Quinn nor Joe Keith was included this time among thoseadmonished to "get on the floor and dance, " and Lem, thankful for therespite, stepped out on the piazza, where a group of men were loungingand smoking. The air outside was sharp and invigorating; the moon wasfull, and in its cold, clear light the Peak glimmered white and ghostly. 

Lem strolled off the piazza, and over to the group of sorry-lookingbroncos, in saddle or harness, standing hitched to the fence. He pushedin among them, patting their heads, or righting the blankets of the fewthat were fortunate enough to have such luxuries. He felt as though heshould like to enter into confidential relations with them. They seemed, somehow, more of his own kind than the rough, jostling, pugnaciousbeings passing themselves off as men and brothers within there. He pokedabout from one to the other of the sturdy, plush-coated little beasts, till he came to a great white plow-horse harnessed to a sulky, andlooking like a giant in contrast with the scrubby broncos. Theamiability which is supposed to wait upon generous proportions proved tobe a characteristic of this equine Goliath, for at Lem's approach hecocked his ears and turned his head with marked friendliness. Lem lookedacross the creature's rough neck to the firm, strong outlines of "therange, " showing clearly in the moonlight; he drew his lungs full of thekeen, thin air. But neither "the strength of the hills, " nor the elixirof the air, could restore his equanimity. He could not throw off theweight that oppressed him. There was no shirking the truth. He wasdeadly afraid of Bub Quinn; the sight of that lowering face at thewindow had caused in him a horrible physical shrinking; the dread of anundefined mischief brewing weighed upon his spirit like a nightmare. 

"Great heavens! What a coward I am!" he groaned aloud. 

The white horse rubbed his velvet nose in mute sympathy against theyoung man's shoulder; but there was no solace that the white horse couldgive. Lem leaned against the friendly neck, and shut his teeth hardtogether. A lifelong chagrin welled up in him, flooding his soul withbitterness. 

If Lemuel Keith had not adored his brother, he would have hatedhim--hated him for possessing that one quality of rash courage besidewhich every other virtue seemed mean and worthless. 

Presently he found himself looking in at the window again. Joe haddisappeared from the scene. Bub Quinn and his Aggy were sitting side byside in stony silence. The fiddles had fallen into a more sentimentalstrain; hints of "The Mocking Bird" might be heard struggling forutterance in the strings. In this ambitious attempt the pitch would getlower and lower, and then recover itself with a queer falsetto effect. Charley Leroy, the crack "bronco-buster" of the region, was caller-outthis time. He was less inventive than the curly-headed boy, but he gaveout his commands in the same chanting measure, and the tramp, tramp ofthe feet was as rhythmic as ever. The curly-headed boy was having histurn at the dance, "assisted" by a sallow, middle-aged woman in a brownwoollen dress, who made frequent dashes into the adjoining room to quiether baby. Lem noticed that the hands of the curly-headed boy were sotanned that the finger-nails showed white by contrast. He also observedthat Aggy's neck was as pink as her cheeks, which had not been the casehalf an hour before. In his effort not to look at Bub Quinn, Lem'sattention had become vague and scattered. He fixed his eyes upon anelderly man of an anxious countenance, with a shock of tow-colored hairsticking straight out in all directions. The man was having somedifficulty in steering his partner through an intricate figure; he wasthe only person on the floor who did not keep step, and his movementsbecame at every moment more vague and undecided. When, at last, thewiry, determined-looking "bronco-buster" sprang upon the company thesomewhat abstruse direction:

 "Lady round the gent, and the gent don't go; Lady round the lady, and the gent so-_lo_!"

the "gent" in question became hopelessly bewildered, and stood stockstill in the middle of the floor. By the time the set was disentangled, the dance seemed to be over, and the "bronco-buster" dismissed thedancers with the cynical prophecy, "You'll all get married on a _stor-myday_!"

At this juncture, midnight being well passed, supper was announced. Thekitchen door swung open, and the fragrant smell of the coffee tookpossession of the room, and floated out through the open window. As someone closed the window in his face, Lem followed the other loungers intothe house. The men had all made a stampede for the kitchen; the womensat on chairs and benches against the wall, some of them leaning theirheads back wearily, while others fanned themselves and their neighborswith vigor, not relaxing for a moment the somewhat strained vivacitywhich they felt that the occasion demanded. Bub Quinn's Aggy--no oneknew her last name--sat a little apart from the others. She wasapparently absorbed in the contemplation of her pocket-handkerchief, apiece of coarse finery, which she held by the exact middle, flirting itacross her face in lieu of the fan, which had slid to the floor. 

Lem paused on his way to the kitchen, and observed her closely. He sawthe pink of her neck take on a deeper tinge, and at the same moment BubQuinn and Joe brushed past him and stood before the girl, each offeringher a plate on which reposed two sandwiches and a section of cucumberpickle. 

This was Aggy's opportunity. She shrugged her shoulders, which wereencased in red velveteen; she lifted and then dropped her eyes, poisingher head first on one side and then on the other; she clasped her handsand wrinkled her forehead. Lem felt as though he were watching thecapricious sparks which mark the progress of a slow match toward apowder-train. Bub Quinn, meanwhile, stood rooted before the girl, whileJoe, having possessed himself of the fallen fan, met her coquetry withblandishments of the most undisguised nature. At length, hesitatingly, deprecatingly, she took Quinn's plate, but at the same time she movedalong on the bench and offered Joe a seat. He promptly took it, andQuinn went away with the calmness of a silently gathering thunder-cloud. 

Quinn did not dance again that night; he withdrew to the piazza, wherehe kept guard at the window hour after hour. Joe danced with no one butAggy, and sat beside her between whiles. Lem wandered about, trying notto watch Quinn. He knew his brother too well to remonstrate with himagain by so much as a look. 

As the night wore on, the hilarity of the company increased, nothingdaunted by the sight of a man lying here and there under a bench with atelltale black bottle protruding from his pocket. When the favoritefigure of the "Bird in the Cage" was danced, and the caller-out shouted, "Bird flies out, and the crow flies in, " everybody in the room, cried"Caw! caw!" in excellent imitation of the sable-hued fowl therebytypified, and the dancers, conscious of an admiring public, "swung" and"sashayed" with increased vehemence. Toward three o'clock Joe was againdancing with Quinn's Aggy, and as the caller-out chanted:

 "Swing that girl, that _pretty_ little girl, That _girl_ you left _behind you_!"

he advanced toward her with an air of mock gallantry. At the same momentBub Quinn stalked into the middle of the set, a sombrero planted firmlyon his head, a long cowhide whip in his hand. He seized Aggy by the armwith a grip that must have hurt her, and said, "I'm going home now; youcan do as you d---- please. " A pistol-shot could not have made half thesensation caused by this breach of etiquette; indeed, it would not havebeen half so unprecedented. Aggy turned with a startled defiance, but atsight of Quinn's face she recoiled. 

"I'm all ready to go, " she said sullenly; and too thoroughly cowed tocast even a parting glance at Joe, she hurried away to get ready for hertwenty-mile drive. Joe, meanwhile, with perfect composure, providedhimself with another partner, and the dance went on. And so thethunder-cloud had withdrawn, and the bolt had not fallen. 

It was not until the gray dawn was in the sky that the last of therevellers drove through the cow-yard, and out across the prairie to meetthe rising sun. 

 * * * * *

By the time a second dawn had come the daily routine at the Keith ranchwas running in its accustomed grooves. The cows had already been milked, yesterday's butter already packed for shipment, and Joe, surrounded bybustling men and barking dogs, was attending to the departure of themilk-carts for the town. The Keith brothers had a young but thrivingdairy-trade, and Joe was a great success in his character of "boss. "

In a field bordering upon the highway, a mile away from the ranch-house, Lem Keith was plowing. There was something about this pastoral laborwhich was peculiarly congenial to Lem; perhaps because he did it well. Not one of the ranch "hands" could guide the plow with such precisionthrough the loose prairie soil. Certainly, very few of them would havetaken the trouble to set up a stake at the end of the furrow with aflying bit of red flannel to steer by. Lem had the habit of plowing withhis eyes fixed upon the stake, his shoulders slightly stooping. Yet thesense of what was going on in the sky and on the prairie was never lost. To-day the sun rose as clear as a bell, flooding the fields with gold. Lem was plowing from east to west, a quarter-mile furrow. Whether hefaced the mountains, answering the sunrise with a crimson glow, or theyellow prairie sea, with bold buttes standing out upon it likerock-bound islands, he could not go amiss. His eye met nothing, histhoughts touched upon nothing, which could jar upon his peaceful mood. The horses plodded steadily on with hanging heads; the plow respondedlike a live thing to his guidance; he knew that the long narrow furrowhe was leaving behind him was as straight as the wake of a boat instill water. After all, ranch life was a fine thing. A man must be thebetter for breathing such air; a man must be the wiser for living soclose to good old Mother Earth; a man must be--hark! Was that Joe's ponygalloping across the field? Lem turned. No; the pony was a strange one. And the rider?

Bub Quinn had leaped to the ground not ten feet from him. He had flungthe rein over the neck of his steaming bronco; but he himself was ascalm and as cool as though he had not ridden twenty miles before sunriseat a break-neck gallop. 

"I've come to settle accounts with you, mister, " Quinn remarked in adrawling voice. 

If the fellow had raged and cursed, if he had seemed to be in a passion, if his fists had been clenched, or the muscles of his face set, it wouldnot have been so appalling. But this deadly composure, the carelessindifference with which he held his pistol in his right hand, while hisleft hung loosely at his side, was more than terrifying; it was fairlyblood-curdling. 

Lem's hands had let the reins drop, and the horses had gone plodding on, the plow lurching and swaying at their heels. 

For an instant Lem's brain whirled. 

 Swing that girl, that _pretty_ little girl, That _girl_ you left _behind you_!

His brain seemed to be whirling to the tune of that jingle. 

"If you've got anything to say, " drawled Quinn, fingering the trigger, the pistol pointed at Lem's forehead--"if you've got anything to say, now's your chance. Sorry I can't allow you time to make a will, " headded facetiously, "but I've got to get back to my work. "

Lem's brain was clear now. There were no more jingles in it. Nothing wasthere but an overwhelming conviction that, if the man did not shootquickly, Joe might arrive, and show Quinn his mistake. That must not be. Joe was too fine a fellow to end like this--like this!

Lem Keith was shuddering from head to foot, and his lips were stiff andblue, yet there was an odd, masterful ring in his voice as he cried, "Make haste, will you, and shoot!"

A shot rang out, and Lem fell, pierced, not by Bub Quinn's bullet, butby the living horror of death. On the furrows beside him Bub Quinn laystretched, with blood oozing from his right shoulder. 

That shot of Joe Keith's, as his pony tore across the plowed field, waslong talked of on the prairie. The echo was still ringing in his earswhen he sprang to the ground, and knelt beside his brother, searchingfor a wound. He could find none. He pressed his hand to Lem's heart; hisown pulse was pounding so that he could feel no other motion. He liftedhis brother's head and laid it against his own breast; he loosened hisshirt and chafed his hands. The sun shone straight into the white face, and the eyelids moved. 

"Lem! Dear old pal! Speak! Do speak!"

Lem's consciousness returned slowly, reluctantly; but he knew hisbrother's voice. 

"Joe!" he muttered; "Joe!"

He made an effort to look about him; and first his eyes followed vaguelythe wanderings of Quinn's bronco, which had strayed far afield, and hestrove feebly to account for the pang that the sight gave him. Suddenlyhis consciousness adjusted itself, as a lock falls into place. He turnedhis eyes on Quinn, lying where he had fallen, the blood still flowingfrom his wound; and then he knew that he himself had only swooned. 

He sat upright, clasping his knees with his two hands, and Joe stoodover him, tenderly brushing the earth from his shoulder. At last Lemspoke, while a dark flush mounted slowly up into his temples. 

"Joe!" he said, "I'm not hurt. You may as well despise me. I _am_ acoward. "

A look went across Joe's face, half-assenting, half-indulgent. 

"Never mind, old boy, " he said, with patronizing good-will; "we can'tall be cut after the same pattern. "

He extended his hand to help his brother to his feet. A movement causedhim to turn. Quinn had gathered strength to speak. He was leaning on hisleft elbow, staring at the two brothers. His face was ghastly, but hisvoice had lost none of its drawling scorn as he said to Joe, slowly anddistinctly, "You in-fernal idiot!"

Then a great light broke in upon Joe Keith's mind, and he knew thetruth. 

V. 

THE RUMPETY CASE. 

When Sandoria is snowbound it is not so very much quieter, even in itsouter aspect, than at any other time; for the monotony of snow is nomore complete than the monotony of yellow-gray prairie. Even when, atrare intervals, the snow covers the fences, it is no characteristiclandmark which is thus obliterated; no picturesque rustic bars are thuslost to the landscape, no irregular and venerable stone walls. At thebest a prairie fence offers nothing more distinctive to the view than asuccession of scrawny upright stakes connected by wires invisible at afew rods' distance. 

One feature Sandoria boasts, to be sure, which lends a certaindistinction to the landscape at every season: namely, a long line ofcottonwood-trees following the course of a halfhearted stream known as"the creek. " The water-supply is but a grudging one, yet it has provedsufficient not only to induce the growth of cottonwoods, but to raisethe tiny collection of houses known as Sandoria to the rank and dignityof a county-seat. For who could doubt the future growth and prosperityof a prairie town rejoicing in the unique advantage of a watercourse?

There is, however, in the modern scheme of things, one agent more potentthan running water, and that is the arbitrary, omnipotent, indispensablerailroad; and the railroad in its erratic course saw fit to give thecold shoulder to the ambitious little county-seat, left it ten miles tothe eastward, and then went zigzagging up to Denver with a conscience asdead as that of the corporation whose creature it was. 

[Illustration: "A HALF-HEARTED STREAM KNOWN AS 'THE CREEK. '"]

Sandoria, unable to retaliate, took its reverses philosophically, andstraightway fell into a profound slumber, from which it is thoroughlyaroused but once a year. Once a year, in the depth of winter, themuch-injured county-seat asserts its rightful dignity; for once a yearthe court convenes within its borders, and then the whole county becomesa meek tributary to its proper head. With indisputable authority thecitizens of the two upstart railroad towns are summoned as jurors;ranchman and cowboy from all the countryside make daily trips in theservice of the law to the neglected little county-seat, leaving, as isbut just, many a ponderous silver dollar in "sample-room" or "store. " Atsuch times the visitors admit that Sandoria is a snug little place, andthe new frame court-house a credit to the county, only why did theybuild a town where you can't see the mountains? Then the Sandoriansreply that from the slight elevation west of the town there is a view ofthe Peak itself, --neither critic nor apologist taking into considerationhow rarely men and women ascend their little hills to contemplate thewider glories of life. 

To-day the court was sitting, and the town rejoiced. Every man, woman, and child felt the pleasing exhilaration of knowing that something wasgoing forward. The square two-story false fronts of the peak-roofedbuildings looked with one-eyed approval upon the thronging men andwomen, horses and dogs, enlivening the single street of the town. Afervent sun shone gratefully upon the loungers in front of thecourt-house, where the snow was trodden to the solid consistency of apavement. The noon recess was nearly over, and all were waiting for thejudge and his galaxy of legal lights. 

Ed Rankin, a young ranchman from over beyond Emmaville, finding himselfamong strangers, and being as shy as a coyote, turned in at thecourt-house door, and was making his way toward the big air-tight stove, when he observed that the room was not empty, as he supposed it wouldbe. In a remote corner sat a sorry-looking group, a woman and threechildren, their shrinking figures thinly clad, their eyes, red withcrying or exposure, glancing apprehensively from side to side. Theyoungest of the group was a boy of ten; he, like all the others, had thelook of a hunted creature. 

Rankin walked across the room, his footsteps muffled by the sawdust withwhich the floor was plentifully strewn. Yet, soft as his tread was, thefour shivering creatures were visibly startled by it. The young ranchmanpassed within "the bar" and stood with his back to the stove. He triedto whistle, but he could not do it. He looked about the room, seekingsome object to divert his thoughts. Bare walls and rows of empty benchesoutside the bar; within that mystic boundary all the usual furnishingsof the immediate precincts of justice. Three days' steadfastcontemplation of these humble stage-properties had pretty well exhaustedtheir interest, and Rankin's attention again wandered to the group inthe corner. The more the dry scorching heat of the stove penetrated hisown person the colder the woman and children looked. At last he blurtedout, in the manner peculiar to him when suffering from embarrassment, "Say, ma'am, why don't you come and get warm?"

The woman started and looked over her shoulder before she answered. 

"I guess we'd rather stay where we are, " she said. 

Incapable of withstanding such a rebuff, Rankin slouched across the roomand stood in the open doorway. A three-seated ranch-wagon, drawn by apair of ill-matched but brisk little broncos, was just coming along thestreet. The heavy wheels creaked and groaned over the snow, and thenstopped before the court-house. The whole "court, " which was sojourningwith a well-to-do ranchman a couple of miles out of town, had arrived, plentifully wrapped up in mufflers of every color of the rainbow. Asjudge and lawyers descended before the temple of justice, it was curiousto observe how, in spite of bemufflered heads and crimson noses, theserepresentatives of a different civilization contrasted with the prairiepeople. There was the grave, keen-eyed judge, of humane and dignifiedbearing; there was the district attorney, shrewd and alert, a risingman; and there were lawyers from the city of Springtown: all thisability and training placed at the service of the remote little prairiecommunity. 

"What's on this afternoon, judge?" asked Merriam the storekeeper, withthe well-bred familiarity of a prominent citizen. 

"The Rumpety case, I believe. "

"Not much good, I suppose. "

"I'm afraid not, " said the judge, glancing as he passed at the shiveringwoman and children. "I wonder if they have had any dinner, " he queried, with sudden solicitude. 

"Yes. My wife looked after that. She took 'em over a mess of stuff. Theylooked scared of their lives to eat it, but it's safe inside of 'emnow. " And the kind, red-faced storekeeper hugged himself visibly at thethought. 

The court assembled. 

Within the bar a group of chairs had already been taken possession of bythe dames and belles of Sandoria and the neighboring ranches, to whomcourt-week is the equivalent of carnival, opera, or races in morefavored regions; and where, indeed, could a more striking drama bepresented for their delectation than here, where friends and neighborsplayed the leading parts?

The court assembled; lawyers and stenographer took their places; theclerk stood in readiness; the judge mounted the bench; and lo! thehistoric dignity of a court of justice had descended upon that rudestage, and all was ready for whatever comedy or tragedy might be toenact upon it. 

The judge, referring to the list, announced that the next case would be"The people of the State of Colorado against Dennis Rumpety. " Then, beingcalled, Dennis Rumpety walked down the court-room and passed within thebar. 

The man looked fifty or thereabouts; a short, thick-set figure, with alarge head covered with thick iron-gray hair. The smooth-shaven face wasa peculiar one, being broad in its outline, with the features, especially the eyes, small and close together. The short, bushy eyebrowsmet above a fine, clean-cut nose; the jaws were heavy and brutal; yetthe menace of the face was not in these, but in the thin straight lipswhich closed like the shears of Fate. A cruel smile gathered about thelips as he answered the questions of the court. There was somethingpeculiarly incongruous in the jovial, happy-go-lucky name to which thisman answered. 

"Mr. Rumpety, " the judge asked, "have you provided yourself with legaladvice?"

"No, your honor, " the man replied, with a strong north-country brogue. "No, sorr! I've got no use for the laryers. "

"You are prepared, then, to argue your own case?"

"I lave me case in the hands of me fahmily. Their testimony will clearme from the false accusations of me innimies. If thim as----"

"That will do, Mr. Rumpety. "

"If thim as are----"

"Mr. Rumpety, that will do. "

The judge invariably spoke in a low tone of voice, but it was not oftenthat he had to repeat himself; the voice of authority has a way ofmaking itself heard. 

Rumpety locked his lips again and took his seat. The jury was called, EdRankin's name among the first. 

Rankin had not heard a word about the Rumpety case, yet the nature of itwas as clear to him as daylight. This brute was up for cruelty to thosefour shivering creatures on the bench in the corner, and they wouldnever dare testify against their persecutor. In all those abjectcountenances there was not one ray of courage visible. 

Now began the process of weeding out the jury, which, when it came histurn, Rumpety performed with a free hand. The prosecution havingdismissed some half-dozen men and "passed" the jury, the defendant beganhis inquisition. He asked no unnecessary questions, gave no reasons forhis prejudices, but with unalterable decision declared, "I won't havethat man on the jury at all!" or, "I don't want him: he may go. "

Rankin was among the first to be thus summarily rejected, and he joinedthe crowd outside the bar, only half contented with his release. Hewould have liked "to convict that beast. "

It was not much of a compliment to be retained on Rumpety's jury. Asoften as, in his cursory examination, he came upon an ignorant orbrutish face, a complacent smile played about the thin lips, and hesaid, "That man 'll do. He 'll do. "

And now the trial began. People from the town of Wolverton testifiedthat the boy Victor--poor little defeated Victor!--had appeared in thestreet fleeing from his home, four miles away, crying that his fatherwas going to kill him. The child's ear had been frightfully bruised andswollen, and there were unmistakable marks of ill usage upon him. Theman Rumpety's barbarity was notorious on all the countryside, and thiswas the third successive year he had been up before the court. It hadnever been possible to secure a conviction, owing to the doggedpersistence of his victims in perjuring themselves in his favor. 

As one after another of the trembling family shuffled up to thewitness-seat and swore, with hanging head and furtive eyes, that DennisRumpety was a kind husband and father, who never punished them "morethan was just, " this model parent sat with gleaming eyes and an evilsmirk, resting his case upon the "testimony of his fahmily. " If, occasionally, the witness hesitated, Rumpety would lift his eyebrows ormake a slight movement which sent the blood into the pale cheek of womanor child and an added tremor into the faint voice. More than once thedistrict attorney sprang to his feet and cried, "Your honor, I object tothis man's intimidating the people's witnesses;" but the intimidationwas too subtle to seize hold upon. 

Ed Rankin wondered what would happen if somebody should hit the wretch awhack over the head every time he raised an eyebrow. Somehow it struckhim that the law was hardly equal to tackling "that kind. "

The cross-examination brought out no new evidence. 

The district attorney was especially persistent with the boy, theimmediate victim in this instance. 

"Victor, " he said, "state to the jury why you accused your father ofabusing you and wanting to kill you, if it wasn't true. "

The boy hesitated. 

"Don't be afraid to speak the truth. He sha' n't hurt you. "

But the boy knew better. 

"Sure I lied, " he said. 

"And what did you lie for?"

"Because I was mad. "

"But what made you get mad with such a kind father?"

"Because he came into the cellar and found fault wid me about thepotatoes. "

"Had he reason to find fault with you?"

The boy looked at his father: one look was enough. 

"Yes, sorr. I had an ugly fit on. "

Poor little shrinking shivering wretch, with his cowed figure andtrembling lips! It is safe to say that an "ugly fit" seized upon everyperson listening to that futile confession. 

Ed Rankin felt the blood boil in his veins. He glanced at Myra Beckwith, sitting among the audience within the bar. She was leaning forward withher hands clasped tightly, watching the boy. There were tears in hereyes, and Rankin blessed her for them. 

It was clear that the district attorney himself was a good deal wroughtupon, for his manner grew quieter every minute. He sat with his headslightly forward, looking out from under his brows straight into themiserable little face before him. His questions came short and incisive. 

"State to the jury again how you hurt your ear. "

"Sure I fell off a horse. "

"Hm! You fell off a horse and lit on your ear?"

"Yes, sorr. "

"And this ingenious tumble took place before the racket in the cellar?"

"Yes, sorr. "

"How long before?"

"I guess about a week. "

"Your mother testified that it happened the same morning. "

"Yes, sorr. It was the same marning. "

The poor little chap's answers were getting almost inaudible. He lookedspent with misery and apprehension. He gave no sign of tears. His wan, pinched little face looked as if he had cried so much in his short lifethat there was no longer any relief in it. He was soon dismissed, andwent shuffling back to his cold corner. 

The woman and girls proved no more available for purposes of justicethan the boy. Their testimony was perfectly consistent and absolutelyunshakable; it had been thoroughly beaten into them, that was clear. 

When it came time for Rumpety to plead his own cause before the jury heproved quite equal to the situation. He planted himself before them andharangued them like any third-rate criminal lawyer. 

"I tell you, gen'lemen, " he declared, "it's no small b'y's job to keepthat fahmily in arder!" and he proceeded to describe them as acantankerous lot, to be ruled only by that ideal justice tempered bymercy which he was apparently a master in dispensing. 

At the last he waxed pathetic, and, in a tearful voice, somewhat atodds with his dry, wicked little eyes, he cried, "I've got a row to hoe, that if there was a lot of men in it they'd have hanged themselves froma rafter!"

With which magnificent climax and a profound bow and flourish, he tookhis seat, and assumed a pose of invulnerable righteousness from which noinvectives nor innuendoes of the prosecuting attorney could move him. Hehad rested his case on the testimony of his "fahmily, " and he knew hisjury too well to have much anxiety about their verdict. 

The lamps had been lighted long ago, and the early winter evening hadset in. The court took a recess, waiting the verdict of the jury. Thiswas the last case on the trial docket for that day. 

Rumpety was standing, broad and unblushing, before the stove, whither, in obedience to his commands, his wife and children had also repaired. With true prairie courtesy the men had placed chairs for the Rumpety"fahmily, " and an unsuccessful attempt was made to converse with them onindifferent topics. 

Rumpety stood, plainly gloating over his victims, the queer gleam in hiseyes growing more intense every minute. 

Mrs. Rumpety did not share her husband's confidence in the issue. Once, when the judge spoke a kind word to her, she muttered, "Ach, your honor!don't let 'em put the costs on us! Don't let 'em put the costs on us!"and Rankin, standing by, realized with a pang that even this miserycould be increased. 

The situation was oppressive. Rankin sauntered out of the room and outof the court-house, closing the door behind him. The air was intenselycold; the stars glittered sharply. He liked it outside; he felt the samerelief and exhilaration which he had experienced when he first tookpossession of his "claim, " three years before, and felt himself lordover the barren sweep of prairie. There had been hardship in it; thehomely comforts of his father's little down-east farm were lacking, --butit was freedom. Freedom! It used to seem to Rankin, before he knew MyraBeckwith, that freedom was all he wanted in life. This shy, awkward, longlimbed fellow had desired nothing so much as room enough, and he hadwrested it from Fate. 

He wondered, as he stood out under the stars, why Mrs. Rumpety and herchildren did not run away. The world was big enough and to spare. Theywould probably starve, to be sure; but starvation was infinitely betterthan bondage. 

The door at his elbow closed sharply, and a voice cried, --

"Hullo, Rank! did you know that those blamed idiots had acquitted him?"

"I knew they would. " Rankin answered, with a jerk which betokenedsuppressed emotion. 

"There's nothing left now but lynching, " his friend continued. It wasRay Dolliber, one of the more reckless spirits. 

Rankin grunted in a non-committal manner. 

"Say, Rank, would you lend a hand?"

"I guess not, " Rankin replied slowly, as if deliberating the question. 

"Why not?"

"I never did believe in lynching. "

"What's the matter with lynching?"

"'T ain't fair play. Masked men, and a lot of 'em, onto one feller. "

Dolliber waxed sarcastic. 

"P'raps you think it's fair play for a great brute of a man to bully awoman and six children. "

"P'raps I do, " said Rankin, still deliberating, "but I guess 't ain'tlikely. "

Another man came out of the court-house, leaving the door open behindhim. They could see Rumpety pulling on a thick overcoat and winding hisears and throat in a heavy muffler. "Come along, " he swaggered, with aflourish of the arms; and woman and children, unencumbered by otherwraps than those they had worn all day, followed abjectly and made theirway after him to the shed where the team was tied. 

"I say, Dolliber, did they say it was fourteen miles to their ranch?"

"Yes. "

"South, wasn't it?"

"Yes. "

"They'll have the wind in their faces. "

"You bet!"

A few minutes later the Rumpety wagon went creaking and groaning pastthe court-house. 

Ed Rankin stepped inside and got his leather jacket and woollen muffler. He met the jury straggling out with the crestfallen air of men consciousof an inglorious performance. The judge and the district attorney stoodjust within the door, waiting for the ranch-wagon. 

"They say, " said the district attorney, "that Rumpety never does astroke of work. "

"Saves up his strength for bullying his family, " the judge rejoined. "Hetakes good care of himself. Did you see how warmly he was dressed?"

"Yes, curse him!"

"It would be a mercy if the others were to freeze to death on the wayhome. "

"Seems likely enough, too; but it would be rather hard on the threelittle brats waiting at the ranch for their mother. "

Rankin, meanwhile, had got himself equipped for his long ride. 

There was to be a dance in the court-house that evening, and some menwere sweeping the sawdust into a corner and setting the benches againstthe wall. 

"Ain't you goin' to stay for the dance, Ed?" one of them asked. "Thegirls are all coming. "

Rankin felt himself blush ignominiously. 

"No, " he growled. "I've got some work to do to-night. "

"What, at the ranch?"

Rankin paused to take account with his conscience. Being a downeaster, he liked to keep on good terms with that monitor. But conscience had nofault to find as he presently answered, "Yes, at the ranch. "

He strode out of the court-house with a tread very different from hisusual slouching gait. Out in the shed he found his bronco sniffingruefully at an empty dinner-bag. But she whinnied pleasantly at hisapproach. Five minutes later horse and rider were off at a swingingpace, headed, not for their own ranch, which lay twelve miles to thenorthward. Straight in the teeth of the wind they travelled; in theteeth of the south wind, that stung their faces like a whiplash. 

Before very long they sighted the Rumpety wagon showing plainly againstthe snow in the starlight. The road went most of the way down-hill, andwagon and bronco made good speed. The air grew colder every minute. 

"About ten below, shouldn't you say, Pincher?"

Pincher tossed her tousled mane affirmatively. 

They kept about forty yards behind the team, which went at a steadyrate. 

"I say, Pincher, the old beast must be laying it onto them horses, tomake 'em go like that. "

This time Pincher merely laid an ear back in token of sympathy. 

"We'll give him a worse trouncing than that, though. Eh, Pincher?"

And Rankin fumbled with cold fingers at the whip-handle in his pocket. The reins lay across Pincher's neck. Rankin did not want his hands toget too cold "for business. "

On and on they pounded through the snow; colder and colder it grew. There was a shiver in the stars themselves, and only the snow lookedwarm. 

"If I wasn't so all-fired mad, Pincher, I believe 't would seem kind o'cold. "

At these words Pincher took a spurt and had to be held in, lest theyshould overtake the wagon. 

They had crossed the railroad, leaving Wolverton with its handful oftwinkling lights to the eastward, and now a line of the Peak wasgleaming, a narrow white crescent, above the long, low rise of ground tothe west. Once they passed a depression through which the great dome ofsnow towered in all its grandeur; but that was only for a moment. Rankin's heart beat high at sight of it. 

"There's a way out of 'most every place, " he muttered, below his breath. 

The last three miles of the way the cold had got such a grip on him thathe desisted from further social amenities. Pincher quite understood hissilence, though she, with her furry coat and hard exercise, was not asnear freezing as he. 

[Illustration: "THE GREAT DOME OF SNOW TOWERED IN ALL ITS GRANDEUR. "]

At length they perceived, close to the road, a dim light shining from asingle point in a huddled group of buildings. The wagon turned into acorral, close to a tumble-down shanty, and as Rankin rode up to theopening the children were just disappearing in at the door, while thewoman slowly and painfully climbed down over the wheel. Rumpety stoodby, jeering at her slow progress. 

"Come, horry a little, me foine lady, " Rankin heard him say. "Horry, orI'll come and give ye a lift ye'll not thank me for!"

The poor creature's dress had caught in something, and she stood aninstant on the hub. 

With a sudden movement the brute raised the long whip he held in hishand and gave her a stinging blow across the shoulders. There was afaint moan, a sound of tearing cotton, and the woman fell in a heap tothe ground. In another instant she had scrambled to her feet and fledlimping into the house. 

Ed Rankin felt the blood rush to his heart and then go tingling downinto his finger-tips; but he made no sound nor sudden movement. With histeeth set hard, his hand clutching his cowhide whip, he got off hishorse and stood on the ground. 

"I guess I'll wait till he's given the critters their supper, " hemuttered in Pincher's ear. "He might forget to do it after I'm donewith him. "

He stood looking into the enclosure while Rumpety unharnessed "thecritters" and put them up in an open shed. 

The corral was a comfortless, tumble-down place. The outlines of thecrazy huts and sheds which enclosed it on three sides showed clear inthe starlight. A gaunt plough-horse stood motionless in the cold shelterof a skeleton haywagon; in one corner a drinking-trough gleamed, onesolid mass of ice. And now across this dreary, God-forsaken stage passedthe warmly clad, stalwart figure that Fate was waiting for. Rankin notedthat he held the whip still in his hand as he made for the door of thecabin. 

Suddenly Rankin blocked his path. 

"_You cur!_"

The words were flung like a missile into the face of the brute. 

With a cry of inarticulate rage Rumpety raised his long whip, and then, coward that he was, let it fall. 

Rankin never had a very clear idea of what happened next. Somehow orother he had torn the coat off the man's back, had bound him with thelasso to a corner of the haywagon, and was standing over him, cowhidein hand, panting with rage and the desire for vengeance. The gaunt horsehad moved off a few paces, and stood like an apparition, gazing withspectral indifference at the scene. 

Rankin raised his arm and brought the whiplash whistling down upon thebroad shoulders. There was a strange guttural sound, and the figurebefore him seemed to collapse and sink, a dead weight, down into theencircling rope. Rankin's arm was arrested in mid-air. 

"Stand up, you hound, or I'll murder you!" he hissed between his teeth. 

But the figure hung there like a log. The spectral horse sniffedstrangely. 

A swift horror seized upon Rankin. He grasped the heavy shoulder andshook it roughly. It was like shaking--hush! he dared not think what!

Rankin flung his whip to the ground, and wildly, feverishly, untied therope. It was a difficult thing to do, the sinking of the body havingtightened the knots. At last they yielded, and the dead weight tumbledin a heap before him. Even in his wild horror Rankin thought how thewoman had fallen just so in a heap on the ground a few minutes before. The thought put life into his heart. 

The gaunt horse had taken a step forward and was sniffing at that heapon the ground, mouthing the limp trousers: a few wisps of hay had clungto them. Rankin watched the weird scene. He knew that that was a deadman before him; nothing could make that surer. 

He tried to lift the body and carry it toward the house; he could not doit. It was not the weight, it was the repulsion that lamed him. 

He stalked to the cabin and flung open the door. The woman crouched in acorner with her six children about her; seven pitiful scared faces werelifted to his. He stepped in and closed the door behind him. 

"Dennis Rumpety is dead, " he stated, in a hard, unnatural voice. Itseemed to him as if those awful words must echo round the globe, rousingall the powers of the land against him, striking terror to the hearts athome. 

The woman glanced about her with wandering eyes. Then she shook herhead. 

"Dinnis Rumpety? Sure he'll niver be dead!"

"I tell you Dennis Rumpety is dead. I have killed him!"

"You!" she shrieked. "The saints preserve ye!"

It was a ghastly work to get that dishonored body across the corralwhile the spectral horse came sniffing after. Rankin wondered whetherthe dishonored soul could be far away. He wondered that the woman andchildren did not seem to dread being left alone with--_it_. He did notknow how futile ghostly horrors seemed, as compared with those horrorsthey had thrust out. 

As Pincher bore him back over the fourteen miles thither where justiceawaited him, Rankin was a prey to two alternating regrets. At one momenthe wished he had not said, "I'll murder you!" In the next turn ofthought he wished it had been murder in the first degree, that thepenalty might have been death rather than imprisonment. 

He did not allow himself to think of Myra Beckwith; his mind feltblood-stained, no fit place for the thought of her. There, where thethought of her had shone for months, a steady, heart-warming flame, wasonly a dull desolation which he dared not face. 

As he rode up the deserted street of Sandoria a strong desire possessedhim to keep on to the north and have one more night of freedom on hisown ranch; but that would have been a cruelty to Pincher. He put her upin the shed and gave her the next day's dinner which he had broughtwith him that morning in case there should be a dance to keep himover-night. Then he took a long, deep breath of the icy air and passedinto the court-house. 

Inside, the atmosphere seemed suffocating. The room was so crowded thathe did not find Myra's face anywhere. The sheriff was among the dancers, but the fiddles were winding up the set with a last prolonged squeak. 

As the scraping ceased, Rankin stood before the sheriff. In the suddenpause of sound and motion his voice sounded distinctly throughout theroom. 

"I have just killed Dennis Rumpety, " he said. 

For ten seconds there was absolute silence; then a rough voice growled, "Thunder! But you done a good job!"

Upon that everybody began talking at once, and in the midst of theclamor Ed Rankin, the man who loved freedom better than life, wasformally placed under arrest. 

His trial came off the next day but one. The coroner's inquest had showndeath by apoplexy, caused probably by a paroxysm of rage. The juryrendered a verdict of "involuntary manslaughter. " The sentence was thelowest the law allows: namely, one day's imprisonment with hard labor. 

This unlooked-for clemency staggered the prisoner. Oblivious of everyfact but the terrible one that Dennis Rumpety had died by his hand, hehad nerved himself for what he believed would be his death-blow. Thetension had been too great; he could not bear its sudden removal. 

"Say, your honor, " he cried, regardless of court etiquette, --"say, yourhonor, couldn't you lay it on a little heavier?"

"The court sees no reason for altering its decision, " his honor replied, gravely, passing on to the delivery of the next sentence. 

But after the court had adjourned, the judge stepped up to the prisonerand said, kindly, "I wouldn't take it too hard, if I were you, Rankin. We all know that there was no murder in your heart. "

"Yes, there was, your honor. Yes, there was. "

"At any rate, the man's death was clearly not your deed. It was the handof the Lord that did it. "

"I don't know, your honor, " Rankin persisted. "It feels to me as thoughit was me that done it. "

The judge and the lookers-on were puzzled by this persistency. It didnot seem in character. For the first time in his life, Rankin felt theneed of words. The moral perplexity was too great for him to deal with;he was reaching out for something to take hold of, a thing which hisself-contained, crudely disciplined nature had never craved before. 

"It's an awful thing to send a soul to hell, " he muttered. 

Then, in his extremity, he felt a soft touch upon his arm. Myra Beckwithstood beside him. 

"Ed, " she said, with the sweet seriousness which had first attractedhim, and now at last there was the tone in her voice which he would havegiven his life to hear, --"Ed, think of the seven souls you havedelivered out of hell! I was over to see them yesterday. "

The consolation of that voice and touch calmed his troubled spirit, restored him to himself; the nightmare of the last two days faded andslid away. He stood a moment in awkward silence, while Myra's handrested upon his arm; then, before them all, he laid his hand upon it, and, with the solemnity of a priest before the altar, he said, "I guessit was the Lord that done it, after all!"

VI

THE LAME GULCH PROFESSOR. 

Simon Amberley had never been able to strike root in life, until, someten years since, he found a congenial soil in that remote fastness ofthe Rocky Mountains known as Lame Gulch. From the first moment of hisarrival there it was borne in upon him that this was the goal of hislong, apparently aimless pilgrimage, and he lost no time in securing tohimself a foothold, by the simple and inexpensive method of taking up aranch. 

The land he chose was higher up the Gulch than any of the neighboringranches, and all that it was rich in was views. It ran up the side of ahill, seen from the top of which, the whole Rocky Mountain Range had theappearance of marshalling itself in one grand, exhaustive cyclorama. Onevery hand were snowy summits forming a titanic ring which seemed toconcentrate upon Lame Gulch; and much of the sense of aloofness andsecurity which was the chief element in Amberley's content came from theillusion which he carefully guarded, that that wall of giants really wasimpenetrable. He liked, too, to feel himself at a great altitude abovethe lower world where he had so long and vainly toiled. 

"Nine thousand feet above sea-level!" he would assure himself inself-congratulatory mood. "When I come to quit, I sha' n't hev fur togo!" which confidence in the direction his spirit was destined to take, may fairly be accepted as indication of a good conscience. 

Amberley had not married, and although he felt the omission to be matterfor regret, he had never, as far as his recollection served him, foundhis wish to do so particularized in favor of any one woman. 

"No, I ain't never married, " he reluctantly admitted, when Enoch Baker, his next-door neighbor at Lame Gulch, pressed the point. 

Enoch lived with his wife just round on the other side of Bear Mountain, only three miles away, and although his now elderly consort was reputedto be unamiable, --not to say cantankerous, --yet her existence, and theexistence in the world outside, of many children and grandchildren, conferred upon him the enviable dignity of a man of family. He was aYankee, and his thirst for information was not to be lightly appeased. 

"Disapp'inted?" he asked, knocking the ashes out of his pipe, andpulling out a venerable tobacco-pouch, with a view to "fillin' her up"again. "Disapp'inted?"

"Yes; ruther, --bein' as I was always fond of children. "

Amberley was himself a tall, limp-looking downeaster, with pleasant, unsuspicious eyes, and a guileless spirit. He used to hand his cattleover to Baker once a year, and let him drive them with his own down thelong mountain road to Springtown, and it was understood than he did notinquire too curiously in the matter of commissions. The stores andfodder which Enoch delivered over to him in exchange, together with aplausibly varying amount of hard cash, seemed to Simon an ample returnfor the scrawny cattle he sent to market. And Enoch, for his part, wasalways willing to testify that Amberley was a pleasant man to deal with. 

"What was she like?" Enoch inquired, in the tone of a connoisseur, transfixing Amberley with his shrewd eyes. 

"Don't know's I could tell you, neighbor, I kind o' fancied the oneswith the snappin' black eyes. But I ruther guess some other kind wouldha' done's well, when it come to the pint. "

Enoch raised his eyebrows inquiringly. 

"Wouldn't ary one on 'em hev you?" he asked. 

"Never asked 'em, " was the reply. "It was this way, " Amberley went on, gathering himself together for the unaccustomed effort of expounding asituation. "I never seemed to feel to hev _gumption_ enough to raise afamily. "

Enoch's countenance took on a judicial look. "Yet you've got a goodeddication, " he remarked, after thoughtful consideration of the case. "You've got book larnin' enough to make your way. "

"Wall, yes; the eddication's stayed by me. I ruther guess 'twas thegumption that got knocked out. That was at Antietam. "

"Didn't know you was in the war, " Enoch exclaimed, with a visibleaccession of respect. "Was you hit?"

"Wall, yes; in the head. I wa' n't much more 'n a youngster, and whenthey let me loose the doctors said I was good 's new; 'n I ruther guessI was, all except the gumption. 'T was kind o' curous, too, " he went on, warming to his subject, and fumbling at something on the side of hishead. "When the bullet ploughed through here, the settin' sun was in myeyes; 'n soon's I got on my feet agin I wanted to go West. I was let gothere in Virginia, 'n though I hankered after my own folks as bad asanybody, there was nothin' for it, but to turn toward the settin' sun. 'N fust I went to Ohio, 'n then to Illinois, 'n then to Missouri, 'n soon here. Never could manage to stop more 'n a few years in one placetill I come up agin the Rocky Mountings. Since then I've felt kind o'settled and satisfied. "

But Simon's satisfaction was destined to be rudely broken in upon. 

One pleasant September day somebody picked up something in the Gulchthat looked like a dingy bit of quartz, and carried it down toSpringtown, and shortly after that a squad of men appeared upon thescene. The mountains, faithless to their trust, had let them in. Theygathered together along the Gulch and on the side of Bear Mountain, where Amberley could see them, little remote groups, sometimes losingthemselves among the pine-trees, sometimes showing plain against the skyon the exposed comb of the mountain-side. By and by more men came androugher ones, bringing mules and oxen with them, and camping in tentswhich they deserted by day. When the early snow came, Amberley couldsee, more plainly than before, the doings of the encroaching enemy. Great black scars were made in the snow; sledges, laden with weird, ungainly masses of wood and iron, were hauled up the mountain-side. Hereand there a structure appeared, that had a grotesque resemblance to agallows. The uncouth monsters planted themselves along the hillside, where they breathed forth smoke and emitted strange noises. Amberleycould hear the rattling of chains, the creaking of timbers; a hoarseshout would sometimes come ringing across the Gulch through the thinfrosty air, if the wind was that way. 

[Illustration. "A TOWN OF RUDE FRAME HUTS HAD SPRUNG UP IN THE HOLLOWBELOW. "]

In September it was that the bit of quartz was carried down toSpringtown; before the winter snows had thought of melting, a town ofrude frame huts had sprung up in the hollow below, and Lame Gulch was aflourishing mining-camp. All the rough-scuff of the countrysidepromptly gathered there, and elbowed, with equal indifference, thehonest miner, the less honest saloon-keeper, and the capitalist, thedegree of whose claim to that laudatory adjective was not to be soeasily fixed. No one seemed out of place in the crazy, zigzag streets, no sound seemed foreign to this new, conglomerate atmosphere. The fluentprofanity of the mule-driver, the shrill laugh of the dance-hall; theprolonged rattle and final roar of the ore-chute, the steady pick of thelaborer at the prospect-hole;--each played its part to burden and stainthe pure, high air that had seemed so like the air of Heaven itself. 

Amberley stayed on in his lonely lean-to, or roamed over his desecratedacres, bewildered and aggrieved. What were the mountains thinking of toadmit these savage hordes! Whither should he go, where should he find arefuge, since his trusted allies had played him false? He loathed itall, loathed most of all Enoch's exultant suggestion that there might begold on their land. 

"But we'll lay low for a while, " Enoch said, with an air of profoundcunning. "We'll wait till they're plumb crazy, and then we kin git ourown price!"

And Amberley stayed on all through that trying winter, simply because heknew of no better place to go to, and the spring came and found himthere, unreconciled, to be sure, but leading his usual life. And so ithappened that one day, when the snow had disappeared from all thesoutherly slopes, and the wind was toward the Camp, so that the soundshe hated came dulled and hushed to his ear, Amberley ventured a few rodsdown the hillside in search of a missing calf. The truant was a pretty, white-nosed creature, a special pet of his master's, with great brown, confiding eyes, and ample ears, and Amberley had named him Simon. Not ausual name for a calf, as Simon was well aware, but somehow it gave thelonely man a peculiar pleasure to know that his name was borne by acheerful young thing, with frisky tail and active legs, and everythingto live for. 

As the elder Simon strolled down the hillside on this particular springday, calling and peering from side to side, his eye fell upon the firstdaisy of the season, nestling close at his feet, --a single blossom amonga crowded group of little short-stemmed scrubby buds. He stooped to pickit, and was standing, lost in wonder over its frailty and its hardihood, when a child's voice struck his ear, calling, "Come Bossie, come!"

Stepping around a projecting rock close at hand, Amberley came upon apretty scene. On a wide level sunny space, where young grass wasalready springing, stood a little figure in blue, with yellow hairflying about in the breeze; a tiny hand filled with grass, held outtoward the doubtful yet covetous Simon Jr. The child stood perfectlystill, her square little back turned to her new observer, while the calfstumped cautiously toward her. At a safe distance he stopped and sniffedat the tiny hand, then kicked up his heels and pranced away again. Thelittle drama repeated itself several times, the child standing alwaysmotionless, with extended arm, and calling upon "Bossie" in enticingtones to come. 

Won over at last by her constancy, --or by his own greed, --"Bossie"ventured near enough to snatch the proffered tidbit; then off hescampered, in ungrateful haste, mouthing the delicate morsel. 

A sigh of relief and satisfaction went up from the little figure, whileone small hand gravely rubbed and kneaded the arm which had so pluckilymaintained its uncomfortable position. Amberley approached with hisshort-stemmed daisy. 

"How do you do, little girl?" he inquired in his most polite manner. "Would you like a daisy?"

"Yes, " was the reply, spoken with a slight lisp. 

"You are very good to feed Simon, " Amberley proceeded, quite set at easeby the gracious acceptance of his offering. 

"Yes;" said the child once more, this time with a rising inflection. 

"Simon is my calf, you know, " Amberley went on. "Here, Simon, comealong. "

Simon Jr. , was already approaching, with an eye to business, and even ashis master spoke, he had got his nose into a certain wide, baggy pocketin the old army trousers, and was poking it about in very familiarfashion. 

"Wait a minute, Simon, " said Amberley, drawing himself gently away. "Here, little girl, you take a bit of the salt in your hand and he'llcome for it. "

"Yes, " came the assenting voice; and Simon Jr. , once convinced that thepocket was closed to him, approached the child with easy confidence, andnot only devoured the proffered salt, but continued to lick the grimylittle palm when it was quite bare of that pleasing stimulant. 

Then the child laughed, a queer little short, grown-up laugh, anddeclared: "I like Simon. "

"So do I, " said Amberley, casting about for some new blandishment. "Let's come up to the shanty and draw a picture of him. "

"Yes, " the little sphinx replied. 

Amberley held out his hand, with a poignant dread lest she should refuseto take it; a thrill of pleasure, almost as poignant, went up his armand so on to his heart, as the tiny hand rested in his own. 

"What is your name?" he asked. They were rounding the big boulder andbeginning the short ascent to the cabin. 

"Eliza Christie, and I'm six years old, " she replied, tugging the whileat his hand, to help herself over a rough place. Then, --"What's yours?"she asked. 

"Simon Amberley. "

"Same's the calf, " she commented. "Was either of you named for theother?"

"Yes; the calf was. "

"I was named for my sainted grandmother. Bella Jones says Eliza's anugly name, but Ma says if 't was good enough for my sainted grandmotherit's good enough for me. "

"_I_ think Eliza's a real pretty name, " Amberley declared in a tone ofconviction, as he warded off the renewed advances of Simon. "If ever Ihave another calf I shall call it Eliza. "

"I like both the Simons, " Eliza announced, with flattering openness. 

To such a declaration as this, modesty forbade any reply, and the twowent on in silence to the cabin door, closely followed by thewhite-nosed gourmand. 

Outside the lean-to was a bench, roughly modelled on Amberley'srecollection of the settle outside his mother's kitchen door. 

"You'd better set there, Eliza, " he said; "It's prettier outside thanin;" and he lifted her to the seat, and left her there, with her fatlittle legs sticking straight out in front of her. 

She seemed to take very naturally to the situation, and indeed hersmall, sturdy person looked as much a part of the homely scene as thestubby little daisy she held in her hand. As she sat there in thesunshine, placid and self-contained, a mysterious trampling andcrackling began among the trees close at hand, and one after another, three solemn-eyed cows emerged into the clearing and fixed a wonderinggaze upon the little visitor. She, nothing daunted, calmly returnedtheir gaze, only holding the daisy a little more tightly, lest one ofthe new-comers should take it into her head to dispute the prize; andSimon found her, upon his return, confronting the horned monsters withunruffled tranquillity. 

Acknowledging the presence of the cows only by a friendly "Shoo, there!"he established himself beside his waiting guest upon the settle, hislong legs crossed, by way of a table. 

"Can you draw?" he asked. 

"No; I don't know my letters, " she replied, with unconsciousirrelevance. 

"How would you like to have me learn you?"

"I'd like it. "

"Well; I'll learn you _O_ first. That's the first letter I learned;" andhe made a phenomenally large and round _O_ in the upper left-hand cornerof the sheet. The paper, finding insufficient resting-place upon thebony knee, took occasion to flap idly in the gentle southerly breeze;upon which the child took hold of it with a quaint air of helpfulnesswhich was singularly womanly. 

"Now I've learned _O_, " she remarked, "I'd like to learn another. "

"Well, there's an _I_; see, there?"

"The other one looks more like an eye, " she observed critically. 

"So it does, so it does!" Amberley admitted, much impressed by thediscovery. "But then it's an _O_ all the same, and this one is an _I_. "

"Yes; well, I've learned that. Now, make another. "

Thus unheralded and unawares come the great moments of life. When littleEliza mounted that wooden settle, her mind was innocent of artificialaccomplishments; before she again stood on her round fat legs, she hadbegun the ascent of that path which leads away up to the heights ofhuman knowledge. It is a long ascent and few accomplish it, but thefirst essential steps had been taken: little Eliza had become a_Scholar_!

Not only had she learned to recognize an _O_ and an _I_, an _S_, an _M_, and an _N_, but she had laboriously made each one of them with her ownhand. And, furthermore, she had seen them combined in a wonderful groupwhich, if her teacher was to be credited, stood for _Simon_! It wasbetter than drawing, infinitely better! Anybody could make a round thingwith four crooked legs and a thin tail, and call it a calf--but only ascholar could put five letters together and make them stand for a manand a calf beside; a man with a kind voice and a big beard, and a calfthat would lick a person's hand! Oh, but life had grown a wonderfulthing to little Eliza, when she trotted down the hillside, clinging tothe fingers of her new friend, and holding the sturdy little daisy inthe other sturdy little hand. 

And life had grown even more wonderful to Simon Amberley. He had notpassed such a pleasant day since he could remember, and he had certainlynever in his life had so much to look forward to; for had not Elizapromised to come again the next day, and to bring Bella Jones with her?

He went into the cabin after his chores were done, and pulled out an oldcowhide trunk with the hair pretty well worn off it, and there, inside, he found the battered family Bible which had been sent out, at hisrequest, when his mother died; and a copy of Shakespeare's _Plays_ inone volume which he had got as a prize at school. There, too, were MissEdgeworth's _Rosamond_, and Nathaniel P. Willis' _Poems_, and one volumeof Dr. Kane's _Explorations at the North Pole_. "Quite a library, " hesaid to himself, with conscious pride. He had not read in a book fortwenty years; not since the time, back in Ohio, when he had boughtScott's complete Works at auction, and had to sell them again to pay hisway to Missouri, whither he had gone in obedience to that mysteriousprompting of the setting sun. 

By and by he strolled up the hill to get the sunset light. It was verysplendid on the glittering snow of the heights over yonder. After all, he reflected, the mountains knew pretty well what they were about. Ifthey had not let the enemy through, those little girls would not havegot in, and he should not have felt as if he were beginning life allover again. 

Before a month had passed, Simon found himself established in the newcharacter of Lame Gulch Professor. So, at least, Enoch called him, andit was not displeasing to the subject of Enoch's pleasantry to know thatothers had adopted the suggestion and bestowed upon him that honorabletitle. His little class numbered fifteen or twenty children of assortedages and dispositions, who came, lured by rumors of pleasant things, andremained to imbibe learning with more or less avidity. There was anabsence of restraint about this novel school which appealed strongly tothe childish heart. The scholars were free to come and go as theypleased, a privilege which, once established, they were not inclined totake undue advantage of. They sat on the most amusing seats, improvisedfrom fallen tree trunks, or small wood-piles, or cocks of hay. Theycalled their teacher what they pleased: sometimes Simon, sometimesTeacher, sometimes Mister! Bella Jones always said "Perfessor. " Theystudied from whatever book they liked best, each child bringing the"Reader" or "Speller" he could most easily lay hands on. But theylearned more from Simon's books than from their own. That book ofWilliam Shakespeare's stood easily first in their estimation, for whenthe "perfessor" read from it, they somehow understood the story, inspite of the hard words which, taken by themselves, seemed to meannothing at all. 

If a ground squirrel scuttled across the clearing, no one was so quickto observe him as the teacher himself, and before Fritz Meyer couldseize a stone to fire at the tame little chap, the young sportsman hadbecome so interested in something Simon was saying about its ways andnature, that he forgot what he wanted of the stone. 

"How do you spell squirrel?" asked a sharp-featured boy one day, as hewatched the twinkling eyes of one of the tiny creatures. 

Simon drew his brows together over his mild eyes, with a mighty effortat thinking. 

"How do you spell squirrel?" he repeated. "How do you spell it? Well;you begin with an _sk_, of course--and then there's a _w_. --I don'tknow, Tim, but that's too hard a word to spell until you're growed up. But I'll learn you to spell woodchuck! We used to go after woodchuckswhen I was a youngster. "

What boy could insist upon the spelling of a paltry little groundsquirrel, with beady eyes and nervous, inconsequent motions, when therewas talk of a woodchuck, lowering in his black hole, ready to fix hissharp teeth in the nose of the first intruding terrier? If they learnedin after years that the spelling-books knew nought of a _k_ or a _w_ insquirrel, --and some of them never did!--we may be very sure that it wasnot Simon Amberley that fell in their estimation!

Sometimes Simon Jr. Came to school, and there was a sudden, exhilaratingscramble in pursuit of his tail; now and then a hard-worked mother wouldbring her baby and sit as guest of honor in Simon's solitary"cane-bottom, " where she would inadvertently learn items of interestwith regard to "yon Cassius, " or "bluff Harry, " or a certain young ladywho was described as being "little" but "fierce, "--a good deal likeMolly Tinker whose "man" kept the "Golden Glory Saloon. " On oneoccasion a rattlesnake lifted its head drowzily from behind a rock nearby, and was despatched offhand by Simon. It was this exploit whichfilled the measure of Simon's fame. 

"Any fool kin learn readin' an' writin', " said Patsy Linders, the eldestof the band, who, by the way, had yet to prove himself fool enough to doso. "But I'll be durned if I ever seen a _stun_ fired as neat as that!"

"Simon's smarter 'n anybody, " little Eliza declared in reply. "He'ssmarter 'n you nor me, 'n he's smarter 'n David an' Goliath, 'n he's mySimon!"

No one was disposed to question Eliza's prior claim to Simon. She alwayssat beside him on the original settle against the lean-to. She would notabdicate the seat even when the ground grew hot and pleasant and she sawhalf her mates lying on the short sparse grass with their heels in theair, conning their books, or falling asleep over them, as the case mightbe. She felt it her prerogative to sit right there, with her chubby legssticking out in front of her; there, where she could pull at Simon'ssleeve and interrupt his discourse as often as she pleased. 

And so it came about, that by the time spring had passed into summer, sumptuous wildflowers succeeding the first little scrubby daisy, ablessèd idyl of quaint child life, dear to Simon's heart, had grown outof the chance meeting on the hillside. It was as if Simon's clearingwere a charmed circle into which no evil could enter, to which no echoof the greed and brutality of the mining-camp could make its way. Whenhis permission was respectfully asked to sink a few prospect holes onhis land, Simon unhesitatingly rejected the proposal, with all itsglittering possibilities. As soon would the President and Fellows ofHarvard College permit the sinking of prospect holes in the sacred"yard" itself, as the Lame Gulch Professor allow his "school" to bemolested. 

But, alas! it is written in the books that no earthly circle shall beforever charmed, no human enterprise exempt from evil. And it was littleEliza herself, Simon's champion and dictator, faithful, plucky littleEliza, by whom the evil entered in. 

She came, one hot July day, and planted herself quite unconcernedlybeside the professor, and he, looking down into the funny little roundface, beheld a great black-and-blue bump on the forehead. The sightgrieved him to the soul, even before he knew its tragic meaning. 

"Did you tumble down, Eliza?" he asked with great concern. 

"No, " said Eliza. 

"Did you bump your head agin something?"

"No. "

"Did anybody hurt you?" and already the professor was casting wrathfulglances from boy to boy, well calculated to strike terror to the heartof the culprit. 

"Not much;" said the matter-of-fact little voice. 

"I guess 't was her pa done it, " spoke up Patsy Linders. "He's abloomin' terror when he's drunk. "

Without a word, Simon rose and led the little creature into the lean-to, where he tenderly bathed the bruise in cold water, giving no voice tothe swelling indignation that tore through him. His tone and touch werebut the gentler for that, as he sought to soothe the self-containedlittle victim, who, truth to tell, seemed not much in need of hisministrations. 

"My lamb!" he murmured. "My little lamb!"

"Ma said to never mind, " the plucky little lamb remarked. "He ain'toften so. "

"Do you love your father?" asked Simon, seeking to fathom the blue eyesfor the truth. 

The blue eyes were, for the moment, intent upon a swarm of fliesdisporting themselves upon the window-pane. 

"Do you love your father?" Simon asked again. 

"No;" quoth Eliza, "I wish he was dead. "

Now Simon Amberley was slow to anger; indeed it may be doubted whetherhe had ever in all his life before been thoroughly roused; and perhapsfor that very reason, the surging flood of indignation, so new to hisexperience, seemed to him like a call from heaven. All day he fed hiswrath on the deeds of Scripture warriors, reading aloud from the sacredrecords, till Patsy Linders exclaimed, enraptured, that "the Bible was adurned good book, by Jiminy!"

Little Eliza stayed on, as she often did after the school was dispersed, sure that "her Simon, " would find some new and agreeable entertainmentfor her. 

"Did your father ever hit you before?" Amberley asked casually, as theystrung a handful of painter's-brush into a garland, which it wasthought might prove becoming to Simon Jr. 's complexion. 

"Yes, " said Eliza. 

"More than once?"

"Yes. "

"Where did he hit you last time?"

"Here. " And Eliza pulled up the blue calico sleeve, and displayed apretty bad bruise on the arm. 

Simon paused a moment in his cross-examination. 

"And you wish he was dead?" he asked at last, between his set teeth. 

"Yes. "

"What does he look like?"

"Something like you, " was the startling response; "only different. "

The amendment was, at first blush, more gratifying to Simon than theoriginal statement. Yet, when Eliza was gone, he went and looked in hisbit of a looking-glass, half hoping to find some touch of the latentruffian in his face. All he saw there was a kindly, unalarmingcountenance, with a full blond beard, and thick blond hair. The eyes hada look of bewilderment which did not lessen their habitual mildness. Hestraightened his tall form, and threw his shoulders back, and he set hismouth in a very firm, determined line; but, somehow, the mild eyes wouldnot flash, and a profound misgiving penetrated his soul. Was he the manafter all, to terrorize a ruffian? The ruffian in question was anunknown quantity to his would-be intimidator, who boasted but a callingacquaintance with Eliza's mother, --a pale, consumptive creature, withthat "better-days" air about her, which gives the last touch ofpitifulness to poverty and hardship. 

Little as he had frequented the now thriving metropolis of Lame Gulch, Amberley knew pretty well where to look for his man, and as he salliedforth that same evening, with the purpose of investigating the "unknownquantity, " he bent his steps, not in the direction of the rickety cabinin the hollow there, but toward the "Lame Gulch Opera House. " Thistemple of the muses was easily discoverable, being situated in the mainstreet of the town, and marked by a long transparency projecting abovethe door, upon which the luminous inscription, "Opera House, " wasvisible from afar. 

Upon entering beneath this alluring sign, Amberley found himself in afull-blown "sample room, " the presence of whose glittering pyramids ofbottles was still further emphasized by the following legend, "Patronizethe bar and walk in!" which was inscribed above an inner portal. 

The new-comer stepped up to the bar-tender. 

"Do you know whether a miner named Conrad Christie is in there?" heasked. 

"I guess likely enough, " was the reply. "Mr. Christie is one of ourregular patrons. Won't you take a drink, Mister?"

"No;" said Simon, shortly. 

"No? Ain't that ruther a pity? But pass right in, Sir. Any friend of Mr. Christie's is welcome here. "

Whereupon Mr. Christie's "friend" passed through the door, into thelong, narrow "Opera House. " It was a dirty, cheerless hole, in spite ofthe brilliance of many oil lamps, shining among the flimsy decorations. At the end of the tunnel-shaped room was a rude stage, festooned withgaudy, squalid hangings, beneath which a painted siren was singing asong which Simon did not listen to. The floor of the auditorium wasfilled with chairs and tables in disorderly array, the occupants ofwhich seemed to be paying more attention to their liquor and their cardsthan to the cracked voice of the songstress. There was a rattling ofglasses, the occasional clink of money, frequent shrill laughs anddeeper-chested oaths and guffaws; the fumes of beer and whisky mingledwith the heavy canopy of smoke which gave to the flaring lights a luridaspect, only too well befitting the place and the occasion. 

"Wal, I swan!" exclaimed a familiar voice close at Simon's elbow: and, turning, he beheld the doughty Enoch, seated at a table close to thedoor, imbibing beer at the hands of a gaudy young woman in a red silkgown. 

Simon looked at the elderly transgressor in speechless astonishment. 

"Yas, here I be, " said Enoch, jauntily, "consortin' with the hosts ofBelial. Take a cheer, Simon, take a cheer. "

"I guess not, " said Simon, slowly; "I don't have no special hankerin'after Belial, myself. Do you happen to know a man named ConradChristie?"

"Him's the gentleman, " the red-silk Hebe volunteered. "Him in the yellerbeard and the red necktie, rakin' in the chips. "

Amberley took a critical survey of his adversary. He was a man of forty, or thereabouts, singularly like Simon himself in build and coloring, with enough of the ruffian in his aspect to give the professor anenvious sense of inferiority. He was playing cards with a fierce-lookingfellow in a black beard, who seemed to be getting the worst of it. 

Simon was conscious afterwards of having turned his back on Enoch ratherabruptly; of having interrupted, by his departure, an outpouring ofconfidence in regard to "Mis' Baker's tantrums. " At the time, however, he had but one thought and that was to strike while the iron was hot. Hefelt that the iron was becoming very hot indeed, as he stepped up to theyellow-haired gambler, who was again engaged in the satisfactoryceremony of "rakin' 'em in. "

"Mr. Christie, " Simon said, and hot as the iron was, he could notcontrol a slight tremor in his voice, not of fear, but of excitement. "Mr. Christie, I've got something to say to you. Will you step outsidewith me?"

Christie measured his interlocutor from head to foot, till Simon felthimself insulted in every inch of his person. The peace-loving hermithad time for blood-thirsty thoughts before the answer struck his ear. 

"Not much!" came the reply at last, while the speaker gathered up thecards and began dealing. "If this place is good enough for me, I reckonit's good enough for a blasted Sissy of your description!"

No one would do Mr. Christie the injustice to suppose that his remarkwas unembellished by more forcible expressions than are herebyrecorded. Yet, somehow, the worst of them lacked the sting that Simonmanaged to get into his reply, as he said, in a suppressed voice: "Thisplace ain't good enough, as far's that goes, for the meanest skunk Godever created! But it'll do for what we've got to settle between us. "

"Have a seat, Mister?"

A sick-looking girl, with blazing cheeks, had placed a chair for him. "Have a----"

The words died on her lips before the solemn, reproachful look theprofessor turned upon her. 

 "And Jinny looked smart As a cranberry tart!"

sang the discordant voice from the stage, which nobody thought oflistening to. 

"It's the Lame Gulch Professor, " the black-haired man remarked, taking alook at his cards, before turning to his glass for refreshment. 

"Damn the Lame Gulch Professor!" Christie retorted, by way ofacknowledging the introduction. 

Then Simon spoke again. 

"Mr. Christie, you've got the prettiest and smartest little girl in LameGulch, " he declared, laying down his proposition in a tone of extremedeliberation; "and you hit her over the head last night, and 't ain'tthe first time neither. "

"Is that the latest news you've got to give us?" asked Christie, passinghis hand caressingly over his pistol, which lay like a lap-dog on hisknees. 

"Better let that alone, " said the black-haired gambler, persuasively. "The professor's ben good to my kids. "

The threat was so very covert that the sensitive Christie did not feelhimself called upon to recognize it as such. 

"_He_ ain't no target, " Christie declared, with unutterable contempt. "I'd as soon shoot a door-mat!" whereupon he proceeded, in a disengagedmanner, to empty the contents of the black bottle into a glass, flingingthe bottle under the table, with a praiseworthy regard for appearances. 

Simon breathed deep and hard, and again there was an exasperating tremorin his low-pitched voice, which drawled more than usual, as he said:

"No; 't ain't the latest news! What I specially come to tell you was, that if you ever lay hands on that child agin, I'll shoot you deader 'nany door-mat you ever wiped your great cowardly boots on!"

Each word of this speech seemed to cleave its separate, individual waywith a slow, ponderous significance. Christie passed his hand absentlydown the barrel of the pistol on his knees, till his fingers rested onthe trigger. If he had had any murderous intention, however, he seemedto think better of it, for he contented himself with a shrug and anoath, and the supercilious inquiry: "What are you givin' us, anyway?"The man of the black beard eyed his movements with a furtive interest. Amberley stood a moment, to give a still more deliberate emphasis to hiswords, thinking, the while, that in spite of the unvarnished franknesson either side, neither he nor his adversary had quite made each otherout. Then he turned and threaded his way among the tables to the door, as quietly and composedly as he had come; while the girl on the stagerepeated the assertion in regard to "Jinny's" smart looks, in which sheseemed still unable to awaken the slightest interest in those who shouldhave been her auditors. Before he had passed Enoch's chair, which wasplaced discreetly near the exit, the pair of gamblers were at it again. Not even the luck had been turned by the interruption. Christie wassweeping in the chips to the same refrain of the "cranberry tarts. "

When, to Simon's infinite relief, little Eliza appeared at school thenext morning, the teacher scrutinized her jealously in search of bumpsand bruises. There was nothing to be seen but the original bump, andthat was reduced in size, though somewhat intensified in color, sincethe day before. 

"I wonder how I should feel when I had shot him!" thought Simon, and hismind reverted to the rattlesnake, and to a sneaking compunction whichhad seized him when the tail gave its death-quiver. The possibility ofmissing his mark when once obliged to shoot did not enter his mind. Hewas fighting on the side of right and justice, and possessing, as hedid, but small knowledge of the world and its ways, he had implicitfaith in the triumphant outcome of all such encounters. 

He took small credit to himself for any temerity he had shown. Somehowit seemed to him that the thing had been made very easy. He feltmoderately sure that he owed his safety to the villainous-looking man inthe black beard; and, indeed, that was quite in order, for he had beengiven to understand that Providence was not above making use of themeanest instruments to the accomplishment of a good end. There weretimes when he was even constrained to hope that, by the same GreatInfluence, a spark of magnanimity had been awakened in Christie'sabandoned soul; and once, when Eliza reported that her "pa" had givenher a nickle, he almost believed that those seemingly ineffective wordsof his had, thanks to that same all-powerful intervention, made animpression. He became positively hopeful that this might be the case, when nearly a month had passed, and no further harm had come to his"lamb. "

One morning Bella Jones, who ordinarily kept rather fashionable hours, came panting up the hill, the first to arrive. She was a dressy youngperson, whose father kept a "sample-room. " Looking hastily about, tomake sure that no one was there to have forestalled her, she cried, still quite out of breath:

"Eliza Christie, she's lost her ma! Died in the night of a hemorag!Eliza ain't cried a drop, 'n her pa he's just settin' there like he wasshot!"

"Like he was shot!" Simon shivered at the words as if a cold wind hadpassed, striking a chill through the intense August day. 

The professor kept school that morning as usual, but he did not sit onthe settle against the lean-to, and when Patsy Lenders undertook tohoist himself up on it, the boy got his ears boxed. Patsy statedafterwards, in maintenance of the justifiable pride of "ten years goin'on eleven, " that he "wouldn't ha' took it from anybody but theperfessor, " and he "wouldn't ha' took it from him, if 't hadn't a benfor that snake!"

It was high noon. The sun was pouring down upon the group of children inthe clearing in front of the lop-sided cabin, and upon the empty settleup against it; upon the brooding heights that spanned the horizon beyondthe Gulch, upon the fragrant pine-trees close at hand. Simon Jr. Hadjust strayed along with a blossoming yucca protruding from his mouth, and the professor had driven him farther up the slope. Returning fromthis short excursion, Simon beheld two figures coming up the Gulch; ablond-bearded man, and a little girl in blue. He hurried toward them inreal trepidation. He could not bear to see the lamb actually in thecompany of the wolf. The three met on the edge of the clearing; Christiewas the first to speak. 

"I've brought you Eliza, " he said, in a steady, matter-of-fact voice, something like Eliza's own. "Her ma's dead, 'n you can have her 'f youwant her. She thinks you'd like her. "

"What do you mean?" asked Simon, his voice clouding over, so that it washardly audible. "Can I hev her for my own?"

"Yes; that's the proposition! 'N there's a hundred dollars in her pocketwhich is all the capital I can raise to-day. I can do the funeral ontick. No; I won't try to get her away from you. She ain't my style. "

Simon was stooping down with his eyes on a level with Eliza's. 

"Say, Eliza, " he asked, "would you like to be my little girl?"

"Yes, " quoth Eliza. 

"And come and live with me all the time?"

"Yes!" and she put out a little hand and touched his face. 

"She won't be no great expense to you, " said Christie. 

Simon stood up and cast a significant glance about him. 

"I guess if I let them prospectors in on my land, " he said, "there won'tbe no great call for economizing!"

The two men stood a moment facing each other with the samehalf-defiant, half-puzzled look they had exchanged at that othermeeting, not so long ago. Christie was the first to break the silence. 

"There wa' n't never much love lost between Eliza and me, " he remarked, as if pursuing a train of thought that had been interrupted. "After thetwo boys died of the shakes, down in the Missouri Bottoms, both in oneweek, I kind o' lost my interest in kids. But I'd like to know she wasin better hands than mine, for her mother's sake. "

"Eliza, " said Simon, in a tone of gentle authority which the Lame GulchProfessor rarely assumed. "Eliza, give your pa that money, and tell himto bury your ma decent. "

Christie took the money. 

"Well, " said he, "I guess you're correct about the prospectors. They'reright after your claim!--Good-bye Eliza. "

"Good-bye, " said Eliza, digging the heel of her boot into the bed ofpine needles. 

Yet Christie did not go. 

"I'll send her duds up after the funeral, " he said. "And her ma's thingsalong with them. And, say!" he added with a sort of gulp ofdetermination, while a dark flush went over his face. "About that_door-mat_, you know. It wasn't respectful and--_I apologize_!"

With that, Christie strode down the hill to his dead wife, and Simon andthe child turned and walked hand in hand toward the lean-to. Half wayacross the clearing Simon Jr. Unabashed by his late ejection, joined thepair. 

"She's our little girl now, Simon, " said the professor, gravely. 

"Yes, " quoth Eliza, with equal gravity. 

Upon which Simon Jr. Kicked up his heels in the most intelligent manner, and pranced off in pursuit of the succulent yucca. 

VII. 

THE BOSS OF THE WHEEL. 

When contrasted with the ordinary grog-shop and gambling den of LameGulch, the barroom of the _Mountain Lion_ has an air of comfort andpropriety which is almost a justification of its existence. If men mustdrink and gamble, --and no one acquainted with a mining-camp would thinkof doubting the necessity, --here, at least, is a place where they may doso with comparative decency and decorum. The _Mountain Lion_, which isin every respect a well-conducted hostelry, tolerates no disorderlypersons, and it is therefore the chosen resort, not only of the betterclass of transient visitors, but of the resident aristocracy as well. Inthe spacious office are gathered together each evening, mining-engineerand real-estate broker, experts and prospectors from Denver, men fromSpringtown in search of business and diversion, to say nothing ofvisitors from the eastern and western seaboards; and hither, to the moresecluded and less pretentious barroom, at least, come the better classof miners, those who have no special taste for bloodshed and otherdeviltry, and who occasionally go so far as to leave their firearms athome. Some slight prejudice, to be sure, was created among theindependent Sons of Toil, when it was found that the _Mountain Lion_ didnot permit its waiters to smoke cigarettes while on duty; but suchcavillers were much soothed upon learning that a "bust dude" had beenquite as summarily dealt with when he broke forth into song at thedinner-table. This latter victim of severity and repression was acertain Mr. Newcastle, a "gent gone to seed" as he was subsequentlydescribed, and he had protested against unkind restrictions by declaringthat such exhibitions of talent were _typ_-sical of a mining-camp. Hepronounced _typ_-sical with an almost audible hyphen, as if his voicehad stubbed its toe. But Mr. Newcastle's involuntary wit was of noavail, and he was forced to curb his songful spirit until a more fittingseason. 

So it came about that the _Mountain Lion_ had not been in existence tendays before it had gone on record as a thoroughly "first-class"establishment. No wonder, then, that an air of peculiar respectabilityattached itself to the "wheel" itself which revolved in a corner of thebarroom night after night, whirling into opulence or penury, such asentrusted their fortunes to its revolutions. Despite its high-tonedpatronage, however, the terms "roulette" and "croupier" found smallfavor with the devotees at that particular shrine of the fickle goddess, and Dabney Dirke, its presiding genius, was familiarly known among "theboys, " as "the boss of the wheel. " "Waxey" Smithers, --he who wassupposed to have precipitated Jimmy Dolan's exit from a disappointingworld, --had been heard to say that "that feller Dirke" was too(profanely) high-toned for the job. Nevertheless, the wheel went roundat Dirke's bidding as swiftly and uncompromisingly as heart could wish, and to most of those gathered about that centre of attraction the "boss"seemed an integral part of the machine. 

Dabney Dirke was an ideal figure for the part he had to play. He wastall and thin and Mephistophelian, though not of the dark complexionwhich is commonly associated with Mephistopheles. His clean-shaven facegot its marked character, not from its coloring but from its cut;Nature's chisel would seem to have been more freely used than her brushin this particular production. The face was long and thin and severe, the nose almost painfully sensitive, the mouth thin and firmly closedrather than strong. The chin did not support the intention of the lips, nor did the brows quite do their duty by the eyes, which had a steelylight, and might have gleamed with more effect if they had been somewhatmore deeply set. The hair was sparse and light, and the complexion ofthat kind of paleness which takes on no deeper tinge from exposure tosun or wind or from passing emotion. 

There were two indications that "the boss of the wheel" was also agentleman;--he put on a clean collar every day, and he did not oil hishair. It would have been strange indeed if two such glaringpeculiarities had escaped the subtle perception of Mr. Smithers, and itwas rather to be wondered at that such inexcusable pretensions did notmilitate against the "boss" in his chosen calling. --That the calling wasin this case deliberately chosen, may as well be admitted at the outset. 

Dabney Dirke had once, in a very grievous moment, sworn that he would"go to the devil, " and had afterwards found himself so ill-suited tothat hasty enterprise, that he had been somewhat put to it to getstarted on the downward path. 

He was the only son of a Wall Street magnate who had had the misfortuneto let his "transactions" get the better of him. Dirke often thought ofhis father when he watched the faces of the men about the "wheel. " Therewas little in the outer aspect, even of the men of civilized traditionswho stood among the gamblers, to remind him of the well-dressed, well-groomed person of his once prosperous parent. But in their faces, when the luck went against them, was a look that he was poignantlyfamiliar with; a look which had first dawned in his father's face, flickeringly, intermittently, and which had grown and intensified, weekafter week, month after month, till it had gone out in the blankness ofdespair. That was when the elder Dirke heard his sentence ofimprisonment. For Aaron Dirke's failure had involved moral as well asfinancial ruin. 

He had died of the shock, as some of his creditors thought it behoovedhim to do, --died in prison after one week's durance. His son envied him;but dying is difficult in early youth, and Dabney Dirke did not quiteknow how to set about. 

Sometimes when he gave the wheel the fateful turn, he tried to cheathimself with an idea that it obeyed his will, this wonderful, dizzying, maddening wheel, with its circle of helpless victims. But there weremoments when he felt himself more at the mercy of the wheel than anywretched gambler of them all. As he stood, with his curiously rigidcountenance, performing his monotonous functions in the peculiar silencewhich characterizes the group around a gaming table, he sometimes felthimself in the tangible grasp of Fate; as if the figures surrounding thetable had been but pictures on his brain, and he, the puppetimpersonating Fate to them, the real and only victim of chance. At suchtimes he could get free from this imaginary bondage only by a deliberatesummoning up of those facts of his previous existence which alone seemedconvincingly real. They marshalled themselves readily enough at hisbidding, those ruthless invaders of an easy, indolent life;--penury anddisgrace, wounded pride and disappointed love, and, bringing up therear, that firm yet futile resolve of his to go to the devil. DabneyDirke, with his tragic intensity, had often been the occasion of humorin other men, but it is safe to say that his own mind had never beencrossed by a single gleam of that illumining, revivifying flame. Forthat reason he took his fate and himself more seriously, Heaven helphim!--than even his peculiar ill-fortune warranted. 

At the time of his father's failure and disgrace he had been theaccepted suitor of a girl whom he idealized and adored, and in hisextremity she had failed him. She had weakly done as she was bid, andbroken faith with him. It was on this occasion that he laid upon himselfthe burdensome task of which mention has been made. 

"Frances, " he had said, with the solemnity of a Capuchin friar takinghis vows; "Frances, if you cast me off I shall go to the devil!"

Frances was very sorry, and very reproachful, and withal, not a littlenattered by this evidence of her negative influence; but she gave himher blessing and let him go, whither he would; and he, with theinconsequent obstinacy of his nature, carried with him a perfectlyunimpaired ideal of her, sustained by her tearful assurance that sheshould always love him and pray for him. Even when he heard within theyear that she was about to make a brilliant marriage with a titledFrenchman whom she had met at Newport, he persisted in thinking of heras the victim, not of her own inconstancy, but of parental sternness. Hesometimes saw her pretty face quite distinctly before his eyes, as helooked out across the swiftly spinning wheel, into the smoke-hungbarroom, --the pretty face with the tearful eyes and the quivering lip ofshallow feeling, the sincerity of which nothing could have made himdoubt, --and somehow that pictured face had always the look of loving andpraying for him. 

There was a certain little ring, bearing a design of a four-leavedclover done in diamonds, a trinket of her girlhood days, which she usedto let him wear "for luck. " He had it on his little finger the day hisfather was sentenced. Its potency might fairly have been questionedafter that, yet when she took it back he felt as if the act must have ablighting influence upon his destinies, quite apart from the brokenengagement which it marked. 

He had accepted for the nonce a place at the foot of the ladder in abankers' and brokers' office which was offered him by one of thepartners, an old friend of his father's. He held the place for somemonths, and, being quite devoid of ambition, he soon came to loathe thedaily grind. Through that, as through, the later vicissitudes of hiscareer, his mind clung, with a curious, mechanical persistency, to thattroublesome vow which he had made. 

The difficulty lay in his entire constitutional lack of vicioustendencies. He had no taste for drink and none for bad company; highwayrobbery was played out, and the modern substitutes for it were tooignoble to be thought of. Had that not been the case his perplexitiesmight have found an easy solution, for more than one golden opportunityoffered for bald, barefaced breach of trust. One day in particular, hefound himself in the street with thirty thousand dollars in histrousers' pocket. This not unprecedented situation derived its specialsignificance from the fact that the day was the one fixed for FrancesLester's marriage. As Dirke walked up the street he saw, in fact, thecarriages drawn up before Trinity Church, and he knew that the ceremonywas going forward. He was struck with the dramatic possibilities of themoment. Were he to decamp on the spot, he might be in time to get intothe morning papers, and Frances would know with what _éclat_ he hadcelebrated her wedding day. He raised his hand to signal a cab, but thedriver did not see him, and ten minutes later the money had gone toswell his employers' bank-account. He had often questioned what wouldhave been his next step, supposing that particular cab-driver had hadhis wits about him and seen the signal. He was loath to admit that hewould merely have been at the expense of driving the few blocks to thesame destination which he had reached more economically on foot!

He had returned in time to stand among the crowd on the sidewalk and seethe bridal party issue from the church. When bride and bridegroomcrossed the narrow space between the awning and the carriage door, Dirkehad his first opportunity of seeing the Count de Lys. He could not butperceive that the man was the possessor of a high-bred, handsome face, but perhaps it was, under the circumstances, not altogether surprisingthat he found the handsome face detestable. The mere sight of the blackmoustache and imperial which the Frenchman wore so jauntily was enoughto make the unhappy broker's clerk forswear all kindred ornaments to theend of his days. 

A broker's clerk he did not long remain, however. He was too restlessfor that, too much at odds with the particular sort of life hissituation forced him into. Within a month of the day on which he hadproved himself so signally unfitted for the _rôle_ of rascal, he hadthrown up his position and cut himself loose from all his old moorings. It was in a spirit of fantastic knight-errantry that he turned his facewestward, a spirit that gave him no rest until, at the end of manymonths, he finally dropped anchor in the riotous little harbor of LameGulch. This turbulent haven seemed to promise every facility for theshipwreck on which he had so perversely set his heart, and he wascontent to wait there for whatever storm or collision should bringmatters to a crisis. Perhaps the mere steady under-tow would suck himdown to destruction. The under-tow is not inconsiderable among theseething currents of life in a two-year-old mining-camp. 

Dirke had not been long in the camp, before his indefeasible air ofintegrity and respectability had attracted the attention of no less apersonage than the proprietor of the roulette wheel, who invited him torun the wheel on a salary. It was now some three months since he hadentered upon this vocation, and it had, on the whole, been adisappointment to him. He had accepted the position with an idea that heshould be playing the sinister _rôle_ of tempter, that he should feelhimself at last acting a very evil part. To his surprise and chagrin hefound that he was conscious of no moral relation whatever with thevictims of the wheel. It was not he who enticed them; it was not he whoimpoverished them. On the contrary, given his contract with the "bank, "he was doing his duty as simply and scrupulously here as in the WallStreet office, performing a certain function for certain pay, accountable to an employer now as hitherto. And, indeed, when hereflected upon the glimpses of Wall Street methods he had got, and uponthe incalculable turns of the Wall Street wheel, whirling its creaturesinto opulence or penury as capriciously as the roulette wheel itself, hecould not but feel that he was serving the same master now asheretofore, and to very much the same ends. And now, as heretofore, hehad no reassuring sense of being on the downward path. 

He used to amuse himself during the day, --for his time was his own fromdawn to dark, --in trying to work out the law of averages, following outthe hints he gathered from the working of the wheel. He had always had ataste for mathematics, having rather "gone in" for that branch atcollege. Fleeting visions of becoming an astronomer had visited himfrom time to time; but the paralysis of wealth had deterred him while hewas yet ostensible master of his own fate, and now the same inherentweakness of character which had made him a slave to wealth, made him aslave to poverty, and he regarded whatever latent ambition he had evercherished as a dead issue. His mind sometimes recurred to thoseneglected promptings of happier days, as he went forth under the starsafter hours, and cleared his brain by a walk in the pure night air. Itwas his habit to make for the hills outside the camp, and his solitarywanderings were much cheered by the light of those heavenly lamps. Atthis high altitude they had a peculiar brilliance that seemed to givethem a nearer, more urgent significance than elsewhere. He felt that itwas inconsistent in him to look at the stars and to inquire into the lawof averages. It would be more in character, he told himself, --that is, more in the character he aspired to--if he were to embrace theexceptional advantages Lame Gulch offered for doing somethingdisreputable. Yet the stars shone down, undaunted and serene, upon thesqualid camp, and into the bewildered soul of Dabney Dirke, sofantastically pledged to do violence to its own nature. Sometimes theytwinkled shrewdly, comprehendingly; sometimes they glowed with a steadysplendor that seemed to dominate the world. There were nights when theseparate stars were blended, to his apprehension, in one great symphonyof meaning; again certain ones stood out among the others, individualand apart. There was Jupiter up there. He did not look as if he wererevolving with lightning speed about the sun, and the moons revolvingabout him were not even visible. That was the kind of roulette wheel aman might really take an interest in! And while he dallied with thestars and with those higher promptings which their radiance symbolized, he yet clung persistently to the purely artificial bonds he had put uponhimself. 

Poor Dabney Dirke! If he had possessed the saving grace of humor hecould not have dedicated the golden years of youth to anything sohopelessly chimerical and absurd. He would have perceived that he wasenacting the part of an inverted Don Quixote; a character grotesqueenough when planted on its own erratic legs, but hopelessly ridiculouswhen made to stand on its head and defy its windmills up-side-down. Asit was, he continued to take himself seriously, and to argue withhimself on every concession made to a nature at bottom sound andwell-inclined, if not well-balanced; and he was still standing at hisincongruous post, performing its duties with dogged industry, whensomething happened which created a commotion within him. The man who hadmarried Frances Lester came to Lame Gulch and gravitated, as every guestof the _Mountain Lion_ is sure to do, for the passing moment at least, to the barroom of the house. The count was a member of a Frenchsyndicate engaged in the erection of a "stamp-mill" at Lame Gulch, andhe was making a flying trip from the East with one of his compatriots, to take a look at the property. He was a man of medium height whosenationality and rank were equally unmistakable, and his air ofdistinction attracted no little attention upon his entrance. Dirke, however, did not see him. There was a throng of men about the wheel, andthe "boss" was regarding their movements with the perfunctory attentionwhich his duties required, when a hand, whiter than the others, wasthrust forward. As it placed a silver dollar on the board a flash ofdiamonds caught Dirke's eye, and he recognized the "lucky ring" he hadonce worn. It was a closer fit for the little finger of the presentwearer than it had been for his own. There was little need of furtherinvestigation to establish the identity of the new-comer. 

The wheel went round and the ball dropped in the stranger's favor. Dirkeglanced at him as he pocketed his winnings. The handsome faceantagonized him even more strongly than it had six months ago. 

M. De Lys did not play again immediately. He watched the wheel with aquiet intentness, as if he were establishing some subtle, occultinfluence over it. Then the white hand was quietly extended, and a goldpiece glittered where it had touched. Again the ball declared itself infavor of the Frenchman. 

He played at intervals for more than an hour, with unvarying success. Eager, inexperienced boys rashly staked and often lost; laborers withhaggard faces saw their earnings swept away; but the count, always calmand deliberate, won, --won repeatedly, invariably. He rarely risked morethan ten dollars on a single turn; he never placed his money on anumber. He played red or black, and the ball followed his color as theneedle follows the magnet. Dirke began to dread the sight of that whitehand; the gleam of the diamonds seemed to pierce and pain him like sharpsteel. 

An hour had passed and Dirke estimated that de Lys must have won severalhundred dollars. Other men had begun to choose his color, and the "bank"was feeling the drain. Yet the machine itself was not more unconcernedthan the "boss" appeared, as he paid out the money lost, and set thewheel spinning to new issues. Black, red, --red, black; so the ball fell, but always in favor of the white hand with the flashing brilliants. Thegroup about the table was becoming excited; Dirke knew very well that ifthe thing went on much longer the "bank" would have to close down. 

There was a moment's pause, while all waited to follow the stranger'slead. Then the white hand reached forward and placed four five-dollargold pieces upon the red. A dozen gnarled and grimy hands swarmed like aflock of dingy birds above the board, and each one laid its coin uponthe red. Round went the wheel; the ball sped swiftly in its groove. Thenthe speed slackened, the ball seemed to hesitate and waver like asentient thing making choice; there was the light click of the drop; the"bank" had won. 

After that the white hand played with varying luck, sometimes winning, sometimes losing. The other players began staking on their own accountagain. And then, some time after midnight, de Lys began losing, aspersistently, as uninterruptedly as he had won. He played asdeliberately as before, with a something more of calculating intentness, but the charm was broken; the wheel seemed to whirl with an intelligentrevolt. Just as surely as the white hand placed a coin upon the black, the red had it; just as certainly as the diamonds flashed above the red, the ball found its way into the black. The handsome face grew slightlystrained and eager--so slightly that the change would have escaped theordinary observer. For the first time Dirke found a satisfaction in thecontemplation of those high-bred features. Silver, gold, banknotes, --each and all were swept into the coffers of the "bank. " Hislosses must already exceed his winnings, Dirke thought. The thoughtanimated him with a malignant joy. For the first time he felt aninterest in the fall of the ball; for the first time too, he felt theevil in his nature vibrate into life. 

Three turns of the wheel had taken place with no appearance of the whitehand upon the board. "Busted, " had been the laconic comment of aby-stander. Dirke glanced at the count and their eyes met. The gamblerwas fingering the "lucky ring. " As he caught Dirke's eye he drew thering from his finger. 

"What will you place against that?" he asked, handing it over to theboss. His English was careful and correct, yet as Gallic as his faceitself. 

Dirke examined the ring judicially, wondering, the while, that it didnot burn his fingers. The moment in which he last held it thus was farmore vivid to his consciousness than the present instant and the presentscene. 

"Twenty-five dollars, " he said, in his most official tone, as hereturned the ring to its owner. 

The wheel spun, the ring glittered on the red. The count leaned slightlyforward. Dirke watched only the wheel. He had a wild notion that theresult was life or death to him, yet why, he could not tell. Then thewheel slackened, the ball hesitated, paused, dropped. Black had won!

M. De Lys turned on his heel and left the table. An hour later the roomwas empty and the lights were out. 

When Dirke passed through the office of the _Mountain Lion_ and steppedout on the veranda, the night was far spent, but the deep June sky wasstill spangled with stars. He stood for an instant at the top of thesteps, hardly aware of the delicious wash of the night air on his face, which yet he paused to enjoy. There was a foot-fall close at hand and avoice. 

"M. Le croupier?" the voice queried. 

He turned sharp about. The Frenchman stood there with his hat raised, agentleman to the finger-tips. Involuntarily Dirke lifted his own hat, and lifted it after the manner of a gentleman. The manner was not lostupon the Frenchman. 

"Monsieur, " said the latter, courteously; "I had the misfortune to losea ring this evening. I shall redeem it on the morrow, when I can commandmy resources. "

The "boss" looked him full in the face. They could not distinguish oneanother's features in the starlight, yet the two personalities were asplainly in evidence as could have been the case in the broad light ofday. 

"No, you won't!" Dirke retorted, coolly, planting his hat firmly on hishead again. He was angry with himself for having removed it. 

"May I ask Monsieur why not?"

"Because the ring is sold!"

The Frenchman started visibly. 

"And the purchaser? Would you have the courtesy to indicate to me thepurchaser?"

"No!"

The rudely spoken monosyllable put an abrupt period to the conversation. 

Dirke passed down the steps and along the deserted street. As he pacedthe length of the board sidewalk, which helped itself over the ups anddowns of the ungraded thoroughfare by means of short, erratic flights ofsteps at certain points, he distinctly heard footsteps following. Theysounded plainly on the plank walk, and he did not for a moment doubtwhose they were. His hands were in his coat-pockets. On the littlefinger of his left hand was the ring. 

He paused, opposite the brightly lighted windows of the last saloon inthe row. The town ended there, the street lapsing into a rough andtrackless barren. Here he waited for the Frenchman to come up with him. He watched his progress with a curious interest, noting how the figurewas at one moment lost in the shadow, only to emerge, the next instant, into the full light that streamed from some nocturnal haunt. As he cameup with Dirke, the electric light over the entrance to the saloon shonefull upon them both. 

Dirke waited for him to speak. Again he raised his hat, but this timeDirke was on his guard and was not to be betrayed into any concessionto courtesy. There was a slight shrug of the shoulders as the Frenchmanreplaced his hat. He spoke, however, in a conciliatory tone:

"It is a fine evening, " he observed. "I have followed your example. I gofor a walk. "

"You have followed me, you mean, " said Dirke, bluntly. "I heard youbehind me. "

Then, moved by a sudden impulse to precipitate matters, he drew his lefthand from his pocket. The diamonds flashed in the light. 

M. De Lys's eyes flashed in response. With all his unabated elegance, hehad something the look of a tiger ready to spring upon his prey. But heheld himself in check. 

"Monsieur!" he cried, and there was a savage note in his voice, whichDirke would not have credited him with. "Monsieur! If you decline topermit me to pay for that ring to-morrow, I am ready to _fight_ for itto-night!" He pronounced the word "_fight_" with a peculiar, hissingemphasis. 

"Not to-night, " Dirke rejoined quietly. 

"And why not to-night, Monsieur, may I ask?"

"Because I am armed, and you are not. "

At the word Dirke had drawn his right hand from his pocket; the barrelof a pistol gleamed white between them. 

The Frenchman recoiled. His face was not pleasant to look upon, yet hisantagonist would have been sorry to lose the sight of it. 

Dirke stood, tall and slim and commanding, his face set in theaccustomed lines. No emotion whatever was to be seen there, not evencontempt for the man who shrank from sure death in such a cause. Forfully twenty seconds they faced each other in the glaring light of thesaloon, pent up passion visible in the one, invisible in the other. InDirke's face, and bearing, however, devoid as it was of any emotion, onequality was but the more recognizable for that, and the count knew thatthe man before him was available as an antagonist. 

"Monsieur, " he said, with strong self-control, "it is possible that youdo not understand--that you are not aware--that--Monsieur! The ringwhich you are pleased to wear so--so--conspicuously is the propertyof--The ring, Monsieur, is sacred to me!"

"Sacred!" Dirke repeated. "Sacred!" The word was an arraignment, not tobe overlooked. 

"Monsieur!" the count cried. 

"I was merely struck by your peculiar treatment of sacred things, " Dirkereplied, his tone dropping to the level of absolute indifference. "Itis--unconventional, to say the least. "

He lifted his hand and examined the ring with an air of newly arousedinterest. He wondered, half-contemptuously, at the man's self-control. 

"Monsieur, " he heard him say. "You are a gentleman; I perceive itbeneath the disguise of your vocation, --of your conduct. When I say toyou that the sight of that ring upon your finger compromises myhonor, --that it is an _insult_ to me, --you comprehend; is it not so?"

"Quite so, " Dirke replied, with carefully studied offensiveness. 

"Then, Monsieur, it will perhaps be possible at another time to correctthe inequality in point of arms to which you have called my attention. "The challenge was admirably delivered. 

"I should think nothing could be simpler, " Dirke rejoined, and hedeliberately put his pistol in his pocket. 

They parted without more words, de Lys stumbling once as he made his wayalong the uneven sidewalk, Dirke keeping on across the barren upland, sure-footed and serene. 

It had come at last, his great opportunity; all the evil in his naturewas roused at last; jealousy, vindictiveness, unscrupulousness. Hegloated over his own iniquity; every feature of it rejoiced him. He hadno moral right to that ring, --all the dearer his possession of it! Thisman had never injured him;--the more delicious his hatred of him. TheFrenchman with his exasperating air of success was to him the insolentembodiment of that which had been wrongfully wrested from him, DabneyDirke, who had as good a right to success as another. Somephilanthropists, made such by prosperity and ease, spent their lives intrying to even things off by raising the condition of theirfellow-creatures to their own. Well, he had the same object to beattained, by different means. He would even things off by grading to hisown level. Was not that a perfectly logical aim, given the circumstanceswhich induced it?

He lifted his hand and moved it to and fro, that he might catch thegleam of the stones in the faint starlight. In the mere joy of seeingthe ring there upon his finger he almost forgot for the moment what itssignificance was. It scarcely reminded him just then of the girl withthe tearful eyes, usually so present with him. Her face seemed to bereceding from his memory; the whole story of his life seemed to growdim and ill-defined. His mind was curiously elate with a sense ofachievement, a certainty that he was near the goal, that fulfilment wasat hand. 

He was still pursuing his way up the hill, walking slowly, with benthead, like a philosopher in revery, when he became aware that the daywas dawning. The stars were growing dim and vanishing one by one, in thepale light which came like a veil across their radiance. A dull, creeping regret invaded his mind. He had loved the stars, he could havestudied them with joy; under a happier fate he might have been high intheir counsels. As he watched their obliteration in the dawn of a daydeliberately dedicated to evil, a profound yearning for their puretranquil eternal light came upon him, and as Jupiter himself withdrewinto the impenetrable spaces, Dirke turned his eyes downward with along, shuddering sigh. His downcast gaze fell upon the poor earthlybrilliance of the diamonds. 

[Illustration: "ON THE EDGE OF A DEAD FOREST. "]

It was not until he heard from the count, a few hours later, that Dirkefound himself restored to the state of mind which he was pleased toconsider natural. The call for action dissipated his misgivings, carriedhim beyond the reach of doubts and regrets, gave him an assurance thatFate had at last ranged itself on his side. For even if duelling werenot a peculiarly un-American institution, it is a mode of warfare ofsuch refinement and elaborateness, as to be utterly foreign to theatmosphere of a mining-camp, and Dirke could only regard the challengewhich came to him in due form and order that morning, as a specialinterposition of those darker powers which he had so long, and hithertoso vainly invoked. He went about his preparations for the meeting in anexaltation of spirit, such as he had never before experienced. Paradoxical as it may seem, absurd as it really was, he was sustained, uplifted, by the sense of immolating himself upon the altar of an idealcause. He was about to do an ideally evil thing, to the accomplishmentof an ideally evil end. Insane as this feeling was, it was hisinspiration, and he felt himself, for the first time in his life, actingconsistently, courageously, confidently. 

The meeting took place on a remote, barren hillside, on the edge of adead forest whose gaunt stems stood upright, or leaned against eachother, a weird, unearthly company. As Dirke arrived with his second, --asaturnine Kentuckian, with a duelling record of his own, --he glancedabout the desolate spot thinking it well chosen. Only one feature of thescene struck him as incongruous. It was a prickly poppy standing there, erect and stiff, its coarse, harsh stem and leaves repellent enough, yetbearing on its crest a single flower, a wide white silken wonder, curiously at variance with the spirit of the scene. Dirke impatientlyturned away from the contemplation of it, which had for an instantfascinated him, and faced, instead, the count, who was approaching frombelow, accompanied by his friend and countryman. 

Shots were to be exchanged but once, and though the principals were bothgood shots, the seconds anticipated nothing serious. The count, for hispart, was not desirous of killing his adversary, and he had no reason tosuppose that the latter thirsted for his blood. He considered theincident which had led to this unpleasant situation as a mere freak onthe part of this morose individual whom he had unfortunately run afoulof. He had, indeed, moments of wondering whether the man were quite inhis right mind. 

Dirke wore the ring, and he gloried in wearing it, as he took his place, elate, exultant, yet perfectly self-contained. 

"Are you ready?" the Kentuckian asked, and the sense of being "ready"thrilled him through every nerve. 

At the given signal, Dirke raised his pistol in deliberate, deadly aim. De Lys saw it, and a subtle change swept his face, while he instantlyreadjusted his own aim. In Dirke's countenance there was no change, noslightest trace of any emotion whatever. Yet both seconds perceived, inthe flash of time allowed, that the combat was to be a mortal one, andthat it was Dirke who had thus decreed it. 

And then it was, in that crucial moment, that Dirke's groping soul cameout into the light, --even as the wide white flower over yonder had comeout into the light, springing from its grim, unsightly stem. In thatflashing instant of time his true nature, which he had so long sought tobelie, took final command. All that was false, fantastic, artificial, loosed its hold and fell away. For the first time in two years DabneyDirke was perfectly sane. 

At the word to fire, he did the one thing possible to the man he was;his pistol flashed straight upwards. 

The two shots rang out simultaneously, setting the echoes roaring amongthe hills. Dirke staggered, but recovered his foothold again and stoodan instant, swaying slightly, while he slowly, with an absent look inhis face and in his eyes, drew the ring from his finger. As de Lys cameup, he dropped the trinket at his feet. Then, slowly, heavily, he sankback, and the men gently lowered him to the ground. 

De Lys knelt beside him, white with consternation. 

"Monsieur!" he cried; "Monsieur! It was a misunderstanding! I mistookyou wholly! And you, you were magnanimous! Ah, _mon Dieu_!"

And then a wonder came to pass, for Dabney Dirke's lips parted in asmile. The smile was faint, yet indescribably sweet, and the voice wasfaint, and far-away, in which he murmured brokenly; "It was--amessage--to--the stars. "

The horror in the faces bending over him was lost in a look of awe. There was an influence mystically soothing in the dying man's words. Thedry, soft air played about the group, rustling the short, sparse grass. It seemed the only motion left in a hushed and reverent world. 

Then, as the smile deepened upon his face, fixed there by the hand ofdeath, the lips parted for the last time, and Dirke whispered; "I amgoing--in--for astronomy!"

VIII. 

MR. FETHERBEE'S ADVENTURE. 

Mr. Fetherbee was in his element, --a fact which the casual observerwould have found it hard to believe; for he was a dapper littlegentleman, dainty in his attire and presumably fastidious as to hissurroundings, and these last were, in the present instance, hardlycalculated to suit a fastidious taste. In a word, Mr. Fetherbee was"doing" Lame Gulch, doing it from the tourist's standpoint, delightingin every distinctive feature of the rough-and-ready, sordid, picturesque, "rustling" young mining-camp. 

He was a popular little man, and he had been received with open arms, soto speak, by the Springtown contingent, when he had put in an appearancethe day before at the _Mountain Lion_. He had arrived in a state of highgood humor, induced by the stage ride from the railroad terminus, whichhe had accomplished, perched upon the topmost seat of the big"Concord, " scraping acquaintance with a miscellaneous lot of pilgrims, all bound to the same conglomerate Mecca. Indeed, so charmed had he beenwith the manners and language of his fellow-passengers, that it is to befeared that he did but scant justice to the superb scenery spread outfor the delectation of the traveller. There were moments, to be sure, when a line of gleaming snow-caps visible through the interstices of atract of starveling trees would arrest his attention; yet the moremoving and dramatic interest of some chance utterance in his immediatevicinity, was sure to recall him to a delighted contemplation of arakish sombrero or of a doubtfully "diamond" scarf-pin. When, at last, the stage reached the edge of the sort of basin in which the camp lies, and began the descent of the last declivity, he could scarcely containhimself for sheer joy. What, to him, were the glories of the encirclingpeaks, the unfolding wonders of this heart of the Rockies, compared withthe actual sight of the mushroom growth of pine huts and canvas tents, straggling sparsely up the hill, centring closely in the valley?Children and dogs tumbled over each other on the barren slope whichlooked like one vast back yard; donkeys grazed there, apparentlyfattening upon a rich diet of tin cans and shavings. Over yonder was acharred heap which had once been a building of some pretension, as wasevident from the rude stone foundation which the blackened timbersleaned against. So Lame Gulch had its history, its traditions, its ruin. The charred timbers already looked older than the everlasting hills thattowered on every hand, wrapped in the garment of eternal youth. 

"What a lot of houses there are here, " Mr. Fetherbee remarked to hisnext neighbor, a seamy old reprobate with an evil eye. 

"Hm!" was the reply, the articulate profanity of which was lost in acloud of the thickest, vilest tobacco smoke. "Ever seen a mining-campwhen the stuff's given out?"

"No; what does it look like?"

"Like a heap of bloomin' peanut-shells chucked in a corner. "

At the _Mountain Lion_ were Allery Jones, Harry de Luce, Dick Dayton"the mascot, " and half a dozen other Springtown men, and they pouncedupon the new-comer with every flattering indication of delight. 

Mr. Fetherbee had been but six months a resident of Springtown, but ithad hardly taken as many days for Springtown to make the discovery thathe was the king of story-tellers. He and his wife had taken up theirresidence in that most delightful of health resorts, and, havingdefinitively closed up his affairs in the East, he had entered upon theWestern life with keen zest. In one particular only he was apparentlydestined here as elsewhere to the disappointment which had dogged hisfootsteps from childhood up. Fortune had treated him kindly in manyrespects; she had given him health and prosperity, she had bestowed uponhim a host of friends, and the wife of his choice, --a choice whichfifteen years of rather exceptional happiness had amply justified, --bestof all, he was endowed with an unfailing relish for these blessings: yetin the one burning desire of his heart he had been persistentlyfrustrated. He had never had an adventure. 

Men he knew had found this crowning bliss ready to their hand. There washis old chum, Jack Somers, who had been actually shipwrecked among theAzores; there was Caleb Fitz who had once stopped a runaway horse andsaved the lives of two beauteous ladies, getting a corresponding numberof his own ribs broken into the bargain; lucky dog! There was thatmiserable little cad, Sandy Seakum, who had been in Boston at the bigfire of '72, and had done something he was forever bragging about in theway of saving a lot of bonds and other securities belonging to hisfather-in-law. But for Mr. Fetherbee there had been no such honors. Hehad never met so much as a savage dog; the very burglars had declined toconcern themselves with his house; and once when the top story of ahotel he was sleeping in had caught fire, and prodigies of valor wereperformed in the rescue of the inmates under the roof, he had disgracedhimself irretrievably in his own eyes by sleeping through the nightunconscious of any disturbance. It was perhaps this unsatisfied cravingfor adventures of his own which gave such a vivid coloring to hisanecdotes of other men's exploits; possibly too, his sense of humor, which had an entirely individual flavor, had been quickened by a slyappreciation of his own oddities. 

On the evening of his arrival at Lame Gulch, Mr. Fetherbee had outdonehimself. He had sat, the centre of an appreciative group, in the cornerof the big office, well away from the roaring wood fire, his chairtilted back against the wall, his hat on the back of his head, spoutingentertainment in an uninterrupted stream. Not that Mr. Fetherbee was inthe habit of tilting his chair back, or, for the matter of that, ofwearing his hat on the back of his head. But here, at Lame Gulch, hefelt it incumbent upon him to enter as far as was practicable into thespirit of the piece. As he sat, enveloped in smoke and surrounded by thefamiliar forms of his Springtown cronies, he was obliged to admit thatthe "piece" in question had not yet developed much action. Yet theatmosphere was electric with possibilities, and the stage was wellpeopled with "characters, " not one of which escaped the watchful eye ofMr. Fetherbee. A "character" he would have defined as a picturesque andlawless being, given to claim-jumping, murder, and all ungodliness;these qualities finding expression in a countenance at once fascinatingand forbidding, a bearing at once stealthy and imperious. If no singleone of the slouching, dark-browed apparitions that crossed his visioncould be said to fulfil all these requirements, the indicationsscattered among them were sufficiently suggestive to have anexhilarating effect upon the genial little story-teller. 

And now it was morning and the serious business of the day had begun. Hewas off for "the mines" with Dick Dayton, Allery Jones, and FrankDiscombe, --a young mining engineer who was far more proud of hisattainments as "Jehu, " than of his really brilliant professionalreputation. They rattled noisily along the main street of the camp in aloose-jointed vehicle drawn by two ambitious steeds which Allery Jonescharacterized as "fiery skeletons. " It was a glorious September morning, and though there had been a heavy frost in the night, the sensitivemountain air was already, two or three hours after sunrise, warmed andmellowed through and through. The road soon began to rise, taking a finesweep about the shoulder of Bear Mountain, and then making its way overobstacles of a pronounced nature, through a very poor and peaked "virginforest. " The wood-cutter had hacked his way right and left, combining aquest for firewood with his efforts in the service of the road-builder, scorning to remove stumps and roots, delighting in sharp corners andmeaningless digressions. The horses struggled gallantly on, sometimesmarching like a sculptor's creation, elevated on a huge pedestal of rockabove the wagon which grovelled behind, its wheels sunk to their hubs inthe ruts on either side;--sometimes plunging into unexpecteddepressions, which brought their backs below the level of the dasher. The wheels made their individual way as best they could, without theslightest reference to one another. At one moment Mr. Fetherbee perchedwith Dayton on the larboard end of the rear axle-tree; a moment later hefound himself obliterated beneath the burly form of the latter, whom theexigencies of mountain travel had flung to the starboard side. Releasedfrom Dayton's crushing weight, his small person jounced freely about, orcame butting against Discombe's back in the most spontaneous mannerpossible. The threatened dislocation of his joints, the imminentcracking of all his bones, the squeezing of his small person between theupper and the nether millstones of Dayton's portly form and theadamantine seat-cushions; each and every incident of the transit Mr. Fetherbee took in perfectly good part. Yet it may be questioned whetherhe would have arrived at the goal intact, had it not been for the timelysplitting of an under-pinning of the wagon, which caused a suddencollapse in the bows of the storm-tossed bark, and obliged thetravellers to descend while yet half a mile distant from their journey'send. 

The drive had been a silent function, each man having been preoccupiedwith the effort to preserve the integrity of his physical structure. Once on their feet, a splashed and battered company, they observed oneanother critically, bursting into shouts of unrestrained mirth over theastonishing hieroglyphics of mud which had inscribed themselves upontheir respective countenances. Mr. Fetherbee himself looked like anIndian brave in full war-paint. 

The day thus pleasantly begun was one of divers experiences, any one ofwhich seemed to contain within itself all the essential elements of anadventure. More than once Mr. Fetherbee felt, as he jocosely expressedit, as if every minute would be the next! Thanks to Discombe'scommanding position as superintendent of several of the mines, they wereable to investigate the situation pretty thoroughly. They climbed up anddown ladders, regardless of the wear and tear upon their breathingapparatus, they hailed the discovery of "free gold" in a bit of ore withas much enthusiasm as if they had been able to distinguish themicroscopic speck which was agitating the minds of foreman andsuperintendent. Into one mine they descended, two passengers at a time, standing on the edge of a huge ore-bucket, which was gently lowered downthe shaft. It was a treat to see the gnomelike figure of Mr. Fetherbeepoking about among the rocky ribs of Mother Earth, closely attended bythe flickering lights and weird shadows cast by the tallow-dip withwhich he had prudently provided himself early in the day. Emerging intothe light of heaven they all rested for a while, sprawling there uponthe sun-baked hillside, looking down into a quiet wooded valley full ofbrooding sunshine and heavenly shadows, while their ears were filledwith the din of the ore-bucket, restored to its legitimate function, rattling up the shaft and sending its contents crashing down into thedump. 

There was but one moment of the day when Mr. Fetherbee's spirit quailed. His kind friends, anxious that he should miss no feature of "localcoloring" had thoughtfully conducted him to the very worst of theminer's boarding-houses, where they all cheerfully partook of strangeand direful viands for his sake. Mr. Fetherbee, shrewdly suspecting thetrue state of the case, had unflinchingly devoured everything that wasset before him, topping off his gastronomic martyrdom with a section ofapricot pie, of a peculiar consistency and a really poignant flavor. Just as he had swallowed the last mouthful, the proprietor of "The JollyDelvers" came up, and Mr. Fetherbee, in the first flush of victory, remarked: "Well, sir! That _is_ a pie, and no mistake!" Upon which thehost, charmed with this spontaneous tribute, hastened to set before hisguest another slice. And then it was that Mr. Fetherbee, but now sounflinching, so imperturbable, laid down his weapons and struck hiscolors. He eyed the pie, he eyed his delighted fellow-sufferers, andthen, in a voice grown suddenly plaintive, he said: "Don't tempt me, sir! It would be against my doctor's orders!"

But even the memory of his discomfiture could not long check the flow ofMr. Fetherbee's spirits, and ten minutes later the valiant littletrencher-man was climbing with cheerful alacrity into the wagon, whichhad been, in the interim, subjected to a judicious application of ropesand wires. 

"Think she's quite seaworthy?" he asked, as the structure groaned and"gave" under his light weight. 

"Guess she'll weather it, " Discombe growled between his teeth which wereclosed upon the stem of his pipe. "If she doesn't, there'll be acircus!"

"Waves likely to be as high as they were this morning?"

"No; it's a kind of a double back-action slant we've got to tackle thistime, " and off they rattled, even more musically than before, by reasonof the late repairs. 

Over the brow of the mountain they went, and down on the other side. Forsome fifteen minutes they rumbled along so smoothly that the insatiateMr. Fetherbee experienced a gnawing sense of disappointment and fearedthat the fun was really over. But presently, without much warning, theroad made a sharp curve and began pitching downward in the most headlongmanner, taking on at the same time a sharp lateral slant. The brakecreaked, and screamed, the wheels scraped and wabbled in theirloose-jointed fashion, the horses, almost on their haunches, gave uptheir usual mode of locomotion, and coasted unceremoniously along, theirfour feet gathered together in a rigid protest. 

"Do you often come this way?" asked Mr. Fetherbee, in a disengagedmanner. 

"Well, no;" Discombe replied, composedly. "This is my first trip. Theysometimes haul the ore down here on a sort of drag, but I guess theseare the first wheels that ever---- I say, fellows, you'd better get outand hang on. She's slipping!"

[Illustration: "IT'S A KIND OF DOUBLE BACK-ACTION SLANT WE'VE GOT TOTACKLE THIS TIME. "]

In an instant all but Discombe had sprung out, and seizing the side ofthe wagon, or the spokes of the stiff front, wheel, in fact anythingthey could lay hands on, hung on to the endangered craft like grim fate, while Discombe, standing on the step, held the horses up by main force. There were moments when the longed-for adventure seemed imminent, andMr. Fetherbee's spirits rose. He had quite made up his mind that if thewagon went over he should go with it, go with it into "kingdom come"rather than let go! He wondered whether he should be able to do thesituation justice when he got home. It was a pity that Louisa could notsee them with her own eyes! Though, on second thoughts, he was afraid hedid not present a very dignified appearance, and if Louisa had aweakness, it consisted in the fact that she made a fetich of dignity, especially where her vivacious husband was concerned. 

Meanwhile the ground was receding more and more rapidly under hissliding, stumbling feet, and his eyes were full of sand. Dayton andAllery Jones were frankly puffing and groaning, but Mr. Fetherbeescorned to make any such concession to circumstances. He was wonderingwhether his gait would be permanently out of kilter after thiscomplicated and violent scramble, when he became aware that the lateralslant was gradually lessening. A moment later he and his two companionshad loosed their hold and stood stretching and rubbing themselves, whilethe wagon, under Discombe's pilotage, continued on its way, scooping thehorses down the hill at an increasing rate of speed. Just above wherethey were standing, was a shed-like structure which looked much theworse for wind and weather. 

"That's the old shaft of the 'Coreopsis, '" Dayton remarked. 

"So it is, " said Jones. "Harry de Luce went down on the rope the otherday. "

"How do you do it?" asked Mr. Fetherbee, much interested. 

"Hand over hand, I suppose; or else you just let her slide. De Luce wentdown like a monkey. "

"He must have come up like a monkey! I don't see how he did it!"

"He didn't come up; he went out by the tunnel. It would take more than amonkey to go up three hundred feet on a slack rope, or thirty feeteither, for the matter of that. "

As Mr. Fetherbee stood mopping his brow, thereby spreading a cake ofmud which he had unsuspectingly worn since morning, in a genial patternover his right temple, a consuming ambition seized him. 

"Now that's something I should like to do, " he declared. "Anything toprevent?"

"Why, no; not if you're up to that kind of thing. They're doing it everyday. "

"Why don't you go down that way now?" Dayton asked. "We shall be drivingright by the tunnel in an hour or two, and can pick you up. "

By this time they had effected an entrance into the shed, the door ofwhich was securely locked, while the boards of one entire side of thetumble-down structure swung in at a touch. The three men stood lookingdown the pitch black hole into which the rope disappeared. 

"Looks kind of pokey, doesn't it?" said Allery Jones. "Think you'dbetter try it, Fetherbee?"

For answer, Mr. Fetherbee seized the lightly swinging rope with bothhands, twisted one leg about it and slid gaily from sight. 

"_Bon voyage!_" called Dayton, down the inky shaft. 

"_Yage!_" came a hollow voice from the reverberating depths. They feltof the rope which was taut and firm. 

"He's all right, " said Dayton. "There's not enough of him to get hurt, "and he squeezed his portly person out between the flapping boards. 

"All the same, I shall be glad to see him again, " Jones declared, withan anxious frown upon his usually _nonchalant_ countenance; and the twomen started briskly down the hill in pursuit of "the team. "

Meanwhile, Mr. Fetherbee was making his way slowly and cautiously downthe rope. It was a good stout one and he had no real misgivings. Yet thesituation was unusual enough to have a piquant flavor. In the firstplace the darkness was more than inky in character, the kind ofblackness in comparison with which the blackest night seems luminous. Then there was the peculiar quality of the air, so different fromanything above ground, that the words chill, and dampness, had nospecial relation to it. In the strange, tomb-like silence, his ownbreath, his own movements, waked a ghostly, whispering echo which wasextremely weird and suggestive. Mr. Fetherbee was enchanted. He feltthat he was getting down into the mysterious heart of things; that hewas having something which came within an ace of being an adventure. Then, as he felt his way down, farther and farther below the vainsurface of things, that intervening ace vanished, and he came up againsthis adventure with a suddenness that sent a knife-like thrill to hisheart. His foot had lost its hold of the rope; he was hanging by hishands only. 

Startled into what he condemned as an unreasoning agitation, he begandescribing a circle with his leg, searching for the lost rope. It mustbe there, of course; why, of course it must! He had certainly not gonemore than fifty or sixty feet, and they had said something about threehundred feet? Where could the rope be? It must have got caught somehowon his coat! Or perhaps his right leg was getting numb and he could notfeel anything with it. But no! His leg was all right. He felt out withhis left leg. It did not even touch the wall of the shaft. There seemedto be nothing there, nothing at all! Nothing there? Nothing in all theuniverse, but this bit of rope he was clutching, and himself, amiserable little lump of quivering, straining nerves. 

Mr. Fetherbee told himself that this would never do. He loosed the gripof his left hand, and it felt its way slowly down the rope gathering itup inch by inch. He knew by the lightness of the rope that the end wasthere, yet when he touched it a shiver went through him. A second laterthe left hand was clutching the rope beside the right, and he had takena long breath of, --was it relief? Relief from uncertainty, at least. Heknew with a positive knowledge that there was but one outcome for thesituation. It would be an hour at the very least before his friendsreached the tunnel, for Discombe had business to attend to on the way. Even then they might not conclude immediately that anything was amiss. The break in the rope must be recent. It was possible that no one in themine had discovered it. The old shaft was never used now-a-days, exceptfor just such chance excursions as his. One thing was sure, --he couldnever hold out an hour. Already his wrists were weakening; he wasgetting chilled too, now that motion had ceased. He gave himself twentyminutes at the most, and then?--Hm! He wondered what it would be like!He had heard that people falling from a great height had the breathknocked out of them before they--arrived! He was afraid three hundredfeet was not high enough for that! What a pity the shaft was not athousand feet deep! What a pity it had any bottom at all!

"I should have liked a chance to tell Louisa, " he said aloud, with ashort, nervous laugh, and then, --he was himself again. 

To say that Mr. Fetherbee was himself again is to say that he was aself-possessed and plucky little gentleman, --the same gallant littlegentleman, dangling here at the end of a rope, with the steady, irresistible force of gravitation pulling him to his doom, as he hadever been in his gay, debonair progress through a safe and friendlyworld. He forced his thoughts away from the horror to come. Hisimagination could be kept out of that yawning horror, though his bodymust be inevitably drawn down into it as by a thousand clutching hands. He forced his thoughts back to the pleasant, prosperous life he had led;to the agreeable people he had known; and most tenderly, most warmly, hethought of Louisa, --Louisa, so kind, so sympathetic, so companionable. 

"Louisa, " he had said to her one day, "I not only love you, but I likeyou. " Well, so it had been with his life, that pleasant life of his. Henot only loved it but he liked it! As he looked back over its course, ina spirit of calm contemplation, the achievement of which he did notconsider in the least heroic, he came to the deliberate conclusion thathe had had his share. After a little more consideration his mind, withbut a quickly suppressed recoil, adopted the conviction that it wasperhaps better to go suddenly like this, than to have been subjected toa long, lingering illness. 

His wrists were becoming more and more weak and shaky, and there was asense of emptiness within him, natural perhaps, considering the qualityof his noon-day meal. His thoughts began to hover, with a curiousbitterness over the memory of that apricot pie. It was the one thingthat interfered with the even tenor of his philosophical reflections. The most singular resentment toward it had taken possession of his mind. 

"Look here, " he said to himself; "I'll get my mind clear of thatconfounded pie, and then I'll drop and have done with it. " He knew verywell that he could not keep his hold two minutes longer, and he wasdetermined to "die game. "

For a few seconds Mr. Fetherbee very nearly lost his mental grip. Itseemed to be loosening, loosening, just as his fingers were doing. Then, as in a sort of trance, there rose before him a visible picture of thepleasant, kindly face he had so warmly loved, so heartily liked. Stillin a trance-like condition, he became aware that that was the impressionhe would like to carry with him into eternity. He let it sink quietlyinto his soul, a soothing, fortifying draught; then, unconscious ofphilosophy, of heroism, of whatever we may choose to call the calmacceptance of the inevitable, he loosed his hold. 

He fell of course only three inches. Anybody might have foreseen it, anybody, that is, who had not been suspended at the end of a rope in apitch black hole. There is, however, something more convincing inexperience than in anything else, and, as we have seen, Mr. Fetherbeehad not once thought of the possibility of a friendly platform closebeneath his feet. The discovery of it was none the less exhilarating. Hedid not in the least understand it, but he was entirely ready to believein it. 

He promptly pulled out his match-box and the bit of candle he wasprovided with. The dim, uncertain light cheered and warmed his verysoul. 

He found himself standing on a broad stout plank, built securely acrossthe shaft. From the under side of this plank hung a rope like the onegently swaying before his eyes. He was saved; and as he breathedsomething very like a prayer of thanksgiving, it suddenly struck himthat he had escaped not only an untimely, but an undignified end. "I'mglad I haven't done anything to mortify Louisa, " he said to himself, andhe felt that he had not until that moment appreciated his good fortune!

He looked at his watch. It was nearly half-an-hour since he had enteredthe mine. He stamped his feet on the plank and rubbed his hands togetherto get up the circulation, and then he pulled out a cigar and lightedit. The first whiff permeated his being with a sense as of food anddrink, sunshine and sweet air. 

The rest of the descent was accomplished by means of a succession ofropes suspended from a succession of platforms. 

An hour later, when the wagon drove up to the mouth of the tunnel, Mr. Fetherbee was found standing serenely there, with a half finished cigarbetween his lips, gazing abstractedly at the landscape. 

"Hullo, Fetherbee!" Dayton sung out, as they approached. "How was it?"

"First rate!" came the answer, in a voice of suppressed elation, whichAllery Jones noted and was at something of a loss to interpret. 

"Was it all your fancy pictured?" he asked, in rather a sceptical tone. 

"All and more!" Mr. Fetherbee declared. 

He mounted into the wagon, and the horses started on the home-stretch, not more joyful in the near prospect of their well-earned orgie of oatsand hay than Mr. Fetherbee in the feast of narration which was spreadfor him. Finding it impossible to contain himself another moment, hecried, with an exultant ring in his voice: "But I say, you fellows!_I've had an adventure!_"

Then, as they bowled along through a winding valley in which the earlySeptember twilight was fast deepening, Mr. Fetherbee gave his initialversion of what has since become a classic, known among theever-increasing circle of Mr. Fetherbee's friends as--"An adventure Ionce had!"

IX. 

AN AMATEUR GAMBLE. 

The mining boom was on, and Springtown, that famous Coloradohealth-resort and paradise of idlers, was wide awake to the situation. The few rods of sidewalk which might fairly be called "the street, " wasthronged all day with eager speculators. Everybody was "in it, " from thepillars of society down to the slenderest reed of an errand boy whocould scrape together ten dollars for a ten-cent stock. As a naturalconsequence real estate was, for the moment, as flat as a poor joke, andpeople who had put their money into town "additions" were beginning tothink seriously of planting potatoes where they had once dreamed ofrearing marketable dwelling-houses. 

Hillerton, the oldest real-estate man in town, was one of the few amongthe fraternity who had not branched out into stock brokerage. For thatreason an air of leisure pervaded his office, and men liked to gatherthere and discuss the prospects of Lame Gulch. Lame Gulch, as everybodyknows, is the new Colorado mining-camp, which is destined eventually tomake gold a drug in the market. The camp is just on the other side ofthe Peak, easily accessible to any Springtown man who is not afraid ofroughing it. And to do them justice, there proved to be scarcely aninvalid or a college-graduate among them all who did not make his way upthere, and take his first taste of hardship like a man. 

Hillerton used to sit behind the balustrade which divided his sanctumfrom the main office, and listen with an astute expression, and just theglimmer of a smile, to the talk of the incipient millionaires, whobragged with such ease and fluency of this or that Bonanza. When alldeclared with one accord that "if Lame Gulch panned out as it was deadsure to do, Springtown would be the biggest _little_ town in allcreation, " Hillerton's smile became slightly accentuated, but a wintrychill of incredulity had a neutralizing effect upon it. As theexcitement increased, and his fellow-townsmen manifested a willingnessto mortgage every inch of wood and plaster in their possession, Hillerton merely became, if possible, more stringent in the matter ofsecurities. 

"We might as well take a mortgage on the town, and done with it, " heremarked to his confidential clerk one Saturday evening. "We shall ownit all in six months, anyhow!"

Peckham, the confidential clerk, shrugged his shoulders, and said he"guessed it was about so. "

Hillerton's confidential clerk usually assented to the dictum of hisprincipal. It saved trouble and hurt nobody. Not that Lewis Peckham waswithout opinions of his own; but he took no special interest in them, and rarely put himself to the trouble of defending them. 

The young man's countenance had never been an expressive one, and duringthe three years he had spent in Hillerton's employ, his face had lostwhat little mobility it had ever possessed. He was a pale, hollow-chested individual, with a bulging forehead, curiously markedeyebrows, and a prominent and sensitive nose. A gentleman, too, asanybody could see, but a gentleman of a singularly unsocial disposition. He looked ten years older than he was--an advantage which Hillertonrecognized. His grave, unencouraging manner had a restraining effectupon too exacting tenants; while his actual youthfulness gave Hillertonthe advantage over him of thirty years' seniority. Altogether Hillertonplaced a high value upon his confidential clerk, and it was with a verygenuine good-will that he followed up the last recorded observation, bysaying, carelessly:

"I hope you've kept out of the thing yourself, Peckham. "

"Oh, yes!" Peckham answered, in a tone of indifference, copied afterHillerton's own. 

Peckham spoke the truth, as it happened, but he would probably have madethe same answer whether it had been true or not. He was of the opinionthat he was not accountable to Hillerton nor to any one else in thedisposition he might make of his legitimate earnings. In fact, it waslargely owing to Hillerton's inquiry and the hint of resentment itexcited, that Peckham put a hundred dollars into the Yankee DoodleMining and Milling Co. That very day. To be sure, he acted on a"straight tip, " but straight tips were as thick as huckleberries inSpringtown, and this was the first time he had availed himself of one. 

It would be difficult to imagine why Peckham should not have thoroughlyliked Hillerton; difficult, that is, to any one not aware of theunusual criterion by which he measured his fellow men. He was himselfconscious that he had ceased to "take any stock" in his employer, sincethe day on which he had discovered that that excellent man of businessdid not know the Ninth Symphony from Hail Columbia. 

Against Fate, on the other hand, Peckham had several grudges. He wasinconveniently poor, he was ill, and he was in exile. With so many hardfeelings to cherish against his two immediate superiors--namely, Hillerton and Fate--it is no wonder that Peckham had the reputation ofbeing of a morose disposition. 

He was perhaps the most solitary man in Springtown. Not only did he livein lodgings, and pick up his meals at cheap restaurants; he had wilfullydenied himself the compensations which club life offers. Living, too, ina singularly hospitable community, he never put himself in the way ofreceiving invitations, and he consequently was allowed to do withoutthem. He did not keep a horse; he thought a lodging-house no place fordogs, and he entertained serious thoughts of shooting his landlady'scat. He had always refrained from burdening himself with correspondents, and would have thought it a nuisance to write to his own brother, if sobe he had had such a relative to bless himself with. 

Lewis Peckham did not complain of his lot in detail, and he never madethe least effort to better it. There was only one thing he reallywanted, and that thing he could not have. He wanted to be "somethingbig" in the way of a musician. Not merely to be master of this or thatinstrument; certainly not to teach reluctant young people their scalesand arpeggios. What he had intended to become was a great composer--acomposer of symphonies and operas--the First Great American Composer, spelled, be it observed, with capital letters. He was not destined tothe disillusionment of direct failure, which in all human probabilitywould have been his. Fate spared him that by visiting him in thebeginning of his career with an attack of pneumonia which sent himfleeing for his life to the sunshine and high air of the Rocky Mountainregion. Peckham was always rather ashamed of having fled for his life, which, as he repeatedly assured himself, was by no means worth thepurchase. Yet with him as with most men, even when thwarted in what theybelieve to be a great ambition, the instinct of life is as imperativeas that of hunger. And Lewis Peckham found himself wooing health at thecost of music, and earning his living as prosaically as any merebread-winner of them all. 

The "straight tip" on the Yankee Doodle proved to be an exception amongits kind. The Y. D. Which he had bought at ten cents, ran up in a weekto twenty-five cents. Peckham sold out just before it dropped back, andthen he put his profits into the "Libby Carew. "

It happened that about that time he read in the local paper that thegreat Leitmann Orchestra would close its season with a concert inChicago on May 16th. This concert Peckham was determined to hear, costwhat it would. Hence the prudence which led him to reserve his originalhundred dollars; a prudence which would otherwise have deprived thespeculation of half its savor. The Libby Carew was as yet a mere "holein the ground, " but if he did not have the excitement of making money, it might prove equally stirring to lose it. Besides that, Hillerton'stone was getting more and more lofty on the subject of stock gambling, and the idea of acting contrary to such unquestioned sagacity had morerelish than most ideas possessed. 

Meanwhile the excitement grew. Lame Gulch was "panning out" withstartling results. One after another the Springtown men went up toinvestigate matters for themselves, and the most sceptical came back aconvert. The railroad folks began to talk of building a branch "in. "Eastern capitalists pricked up their ears and sent out experts. 

One morning the last of February, half-a-dozen men, among them a couplewho had just come down from the camp, stood about Hillerton's office orsat on the railing of the sanctum, giving rough but graphic accounts ofthe sights to be seen at Lame Gulch. The company was not a typicalWestern crowd. The men were nearly all well dressed and exhibitedevidences of good breeding. The refinement of the "tenderfoot" was stilldiscernible, and excepting for the riding boots which they wore and thesilk hats and derbys which they did not wear, and for an air of cheerfulalertness which prevailed among them, one might have taken them for agroup of Eastern club men. The reason of this was not far to seek. Mostof them were, in fact, Eastern club men, who had sought Springtown as ahealth-resort, and had discovered, to their surprise, that it was aboutthe pleasantest place they had yet "struck. "

Peckham sat somewhat apart from the others on his high revolving stool, sometimes listening, without a sign of interest in his face, sometimestwirling his stool around and sitting with his back to the company, apparently immersed in figures. 

Allery Jones, the Springtown wag, had once remarked that Peckham's backwas more expressive than his face. On this occasion he nudged DickySimmons, with a view to reminding him of the fact; but Dicky, a handsomeyouth with a sanguine light in his blue eyes, was intent on what Harryde Luce was saying. 

"Tell you what!" cried de Luce, who had only recently discovered thatthere were other interests in life besides the three P's, polo, poker, and pigeon-shooting. "Tell you what, those fellows up there are arustling lot. Take the Cosmopolitan Hotel now! They're getting thingsdown to a fine point in that tavern. There was a man put up there nightbefore last, one of those rich-as-thunder New York capitalists. Youcould see it by the hang of his coat-tails. He came sniffing round onhis own hook, as those cautious cusses do. Well, Rumsey gave him one ofhis crack rooms--panes of glass in the window, imitation mahoganychamber-set, pitcher of water on the washstand, all complete. Do yousuppose that was good enough for old Money-Bags? Not by a jug-full. Heowned the earth, he'd have you to know, and he wasn't going to put upwith anything short of the Murray Hill! Nothing suited. There wasn't anypaper on the walls, there wasn't any carpet on the floor, there wasn'tany window-shade, and I'll be blowed if the old chap didn't object tofinding the water frozen solid in the pitcher. He came down to the barroaring-mad, and said he wouldn't stand it; he'd rather camp out anddone with it; if they couldn't give him a better room than that, he'd beout of this quicker 'n he came in! Well, fellers! You never saw anythinghalf so sweet as that old halibut Rumsey. If the gentleman would juststep in to supper and have a little patience, he thought he'd findeverything to his satisfaction. And by the living Jingo, boys! when oldMoney-Bags went up to his room in the middle of the evening, I'm blessedif there wasn't a paper on the wall, an ingrain carpet on the floor, anda red-hot stove over in the corner! Same room, too! Like to have seenthe old boy when the grand transformation scene burst upon hisastonished optics! Guess he thought Lame Gulch could give New York Citypoints!"

"Did the old cove seem likely to put any money in?" asked a man withhigh cheekbones, who had the worried look of a person who has given amortgage on his peace of mind. 

"Yes, he bought up some claims dirt cheap, and they say he's going toform a company. "

"That's the talk!" cried the sanguine Dicky. 

"Speaking of picking up claims dirt cheap, " began a new orator, anex-ranchman, who was soon to make the discovery that there was as muchmoney to be lost in mines as in cattle, if a fellow only had the knack;"I saw a tidy little deal when I was up at the camp last week. We weresitting round in the barroom of the Cosmopolitan, trying to keep warm. I guess it was the only place in Lame Gulch that night where thethermometer was above zero. There was a lot of drinking going on, andthe men that were playing were playing high. I wasn't in it myself. Iwas pleasantly occupied with feeling warm after having fooled round theLibby Carew all day. I got interested in a man standing outside, whokept looking in at the window and going off again. The light struck theface in a queer sort of way, and I guess there was something wrong aboutthe window-pane. They don't do much business in the way of plate-glassat Lame Gulch. Anyhow, I couldn't seem to get a fair sight of anythingbut the man's eyes, and they looked like the eyes of a hungry wolf. "

"Ever meet a hungry wolf, Phil?"

"Scores of 'em. You're one yourself, Jim, when you look at thestock-boards. Well! The fellow came and went like an angel visitant, andafter awhile I got tired of watching for him, and found myself admiringthe vocabulary of the boys as they got excited. Gad! It's a liberaleducation to listen to that sort of a crowd. The worst you can doyourself sounds like a Sunday-school address by comparison. Suddenly thedoor opened and in walked the man with the eyes. He hadn't any overcoaton and his feet and legs were tied up in gunny sacks. His teeth werechattering and his face looked like a blue print! He shuffled up toRumsey, who was sipping a cocktail behind the bar, and says he:

"'Evenin', pard; I want a drink. '

"'All right, stranger. Just show us the color of your money. '

"'Ain't got any money, ' says he, 'but I've got a claim over 'long sideof the Yankee Doodle, and I'm ready to swap a half interest in it forall the liquor I can drink between now and morning. ' There was a kind ofa desperate look about the man that meant business. Rumsey stepped outamong the boys and got a pointer or two on that claim, and they made thedeal. "

There was a pause in the narrative, to allow the listeners to take inthe situation, and then the speaker went on: "It was a sight to see thatchap pour the stuff down his throat. He was drinking, off and on, prettymuch all night. Didn't come to till late the next afternoon. Rumsey wasso pleased with the deal next morning, that he let the fellow lie behindthe stove all day and sleep it off. Not sure but that he gave him adrink of water when he woke up, and water's high at Lame Gulch. "

"Kind of a shame, I call it, to let him do it. Wasn't there anybody tostand treat?" It was Dicky, the lad of the sanguine countenance thatspoke. 

"Wonder what the claim was worth?" said the man with a mortgage on him. 

"Wonder how he felt next morning?" queried another. 

"Felt like an infernal donkey!" Hillerton declared, flinging away acigar-stump and taking his legs down from the desk. 

Then Peckham turned himself round to face the crowd, and said, in a toneof quiet conviction:

"The man was all right. If you only want anything bad enough, no priceis too high to pay for it. "

This was a sentiment which every one was bound to respect--every one, atleast, excepting Hillerton. 

"Sounds very well, Peckham, " he said, "but it won't hold water. "

The most surprising thing about Peckham's little speculations was thatthey all succeeded. It made the other men rather mad because he did notcare more. 

"But that's always the way, " Freddy Dillingham remarked, with an air ofprofound philosophy. "It's the fellers that don't care a darn that haveall the luck. "

When Peckham sold out of the Libby Carew, he doubled his money, and themoment he touched the "Trailing Arbutus, " up she went. By the first ofMay he found himself the possessor of nearly three thousand dollars'worth of "stuff" distributed among several ventures. Of course, he wascredited with five times as much, and the other men began to think thatif he did not set up a dogcart pretty soon, or at least a yellowbuckboard, they should have their opinion of him. If the truth must beknown, Peckham would not have given a nickle for a dozen dog-carts. Itwas all very well to make a little money; it was the first time he haddiscovered a taste for anything in the nature of a game, and the higherthe stakes came to be, the more worth while it seemed. Nevertheless, hismind, in those days of early May, when he was steadily rising in theesteem of his associates, was very little occupied with the calculationof his profits. 

He had long since arranged with Hillerton to take part of his vacationthe middle of May, and the anticipation of that concert was moreinspiring to him than all the gold mines in Colorado. As the time drewnear, a consuming thirst took possession of him, and not a gambler ofthem all was the prey to a more feverish impatience than he. Hetormented himself with thoughts of every possible disaster which mightcome to thwart him at the last minute. Visions of a railroad accidentwhich should result in the wholesale destruction of the entireorchestra, haunted his mind. Another great fire might wipe Chicago outof existence. The one thing which his imagination failed to conceive, was the possibility that he, Lewis Peckham, might be deterred fromhearing the concert when once it should take place. In the interim hemade repeated calculations of the number of hours that must be livedthrough before May 16th. Hillerton came across a half sheet of papercovered with such calculations, and was somewhat puzzled by theprominence of the figure 24. An odd price to pay for a mining stock. Hewas afraid it was the "Adeline Maria, " a notorious swindle. Well, Peckham might as well get his lesson at the hands of the faithlessAdeline Maria as by any other means. He was bound to come to griefsooner or later, but that was no business of Hillerton's. 

On May 7th, Hillerton came down with pleurisy and Peckham suddenly foundhimself at the head of affairs. Hillerton had no partner; no one butPeckham could take his place. And in Peckham's moral constitution was asubstratum of unshakable fidelity upon which the astute Hillerton hadbuilt. Cursing his own unimpeachable sense of duty, Peckham could seebut one straw of hope to clutch at. It might be a light case. 

He went directly to the doctor's office, and with a feverish anxietyapparent in his voice and bearing, he asked how long Hillerton waslikely to be laid up. 

"Curious, " thought the doctor during that carefully calculated pausewhich your experienced practitioner so well knows the value of. "Curioushow fond folks get of James Hillerton. The fellow looks as though hisown brother were at death's door. "

"I think there is nothing serious to apprehend, " he answered soothingly. "Hillerton has a good constitution. I've no doubt he will be about againby the end of the month. "

Peckham went white to the lips. 

"I suppose that's the best you can promise, " he said. 

"Yes, but I can promise that safely. "

The confidential clerk went back to the office filled with a profoundloathing of life. 

"If liquor wasn't so nasty, I'd take to drink, " he said to himself as hesat down at Hillerton's desk and set to work. 

The next day was Sunday, and Peckham was at something of a loss what todo with it. He hated the sight of his room. The odor of the strawmatting and the pattern of the wallpaper were inextricably associatedwith those anticipations which he had been rudely cheated out of. Toescape such associations he took an electric car to the Bluffs, thoserock-bound islands in the prairie sea which lie a couple of miles to theeast of the town. There was only one other passenger besides himself, aman with a gun, who softly whistled a popular air, very much out oftune. Peckham came perilously near kicking the offender, but, happily, the fellow got off just in time, and went strolling across the open withthe gun over his shoulder. Once he stooped to pick a flower which hestuck in his buttonhole. Queer, thought Peckham, that a man should gopicking flowers and whistling out of tune! There were the mountains, too. Some people made a great deal of them--great, stupid masses of dumbearth! He remembered he had thought them fine himself the other day whenthere were shadows on them. But to-day! How the sun glared on their uglyreddish sides! And what was it that had gone wrong anyhow? He could notseem to remember, and on the whole he did not wish to. 

Now Lewis Peckham was neither losing his mind, nor had he been drowninghis sorrows in the conventional dram. The simple fact of the matter wasthat he had not slept fifteen minutes consecutively all night long, andhis brain was not likely to clear up until he had given it a chance torecuperate. By the time he had left the car and climbed the castellatedside of Pine Bluff he was still miserably unhappy, but he had altogetherlost track of the cause of his unhappiness. He strayed aimlessly alongthe grassy top of the Bluff, away from the road, and down a slightincline, into a sheltered hollow. At the foot of a strange, salmon-colored column of rock was a little group of budding scrub-oaks. Peckham crawled in among them, and in about thirty seconds he was fastasleep. There he lay for hours. A blue jay, chattering in a pine-treenear at hand, made no impression upon his sleep-deadened ear; a pair ofground squirrels scuttled in and out among the scrub-oaks, peering shylyat the motionless intruder, and squeaked faintly to one another, withvivacious action of nose and tail. They were, perhaps, discussing theavailability of a certain inviting coat-pocket for purposes of domesticarchitecture. An occasional rumble of wheels on the road, a dozen rodsaway, startled the birds and squirrels, but Peckham slept tranquilly on, and dreamed that the Leitmann Orchestra was playing in the SpringtownOpera House, and that he, by reason of his being an early Christianmartyr, was forced to roast at the stake just out of hearing of themusic. 

[Illustration: PINE BLUFF. ]

It was well on in the afternoon when he came to himself, to find hisboots scorched almost to a crisp in the sun which had been pouring uponthem. He pulled himself out from among the scrub-oaks, and got his feetout of the sun. Then he looked at his watch; and after that he looked atthe view. 

The view was well worth looking at in the mellow afternoon light. Peckham gazed across the shimmering gold of the plain, to the mountains, which stood hushed into a palpitating blue; the Peak alone, white andethereal, floating above the foot hills in the sun. Peckham wasimpressed in spite of himself. It made him think of a weird, mysticalstrain of music that had sometimes haunted his brain and yet which hehad never been able to seize and capture. As he gazed on the soaring, mystical Peak, he remembered his dream, and slowly, but very surely, heperceived that a purpose was forming in his mind, almost without theconnivance of his will. He got upon his feet and laughed aloud. A suddenyouthful intoxication of delight welled up within him and rang forth inthat laugh. Life, for the first time in three years, seemed to him likea glorious thing; an irresistible, a soul-stirring purpose had takenpossession of him, and he knew that no obstacle could stand against it. 

He started for the town almost on a run, scorning the prosaic cars whichharbored passengers who whistled out of tune. He struck directly acrossthe intercepting plain, and though he soon had to slacken his pace, hiswinged thoughts went on before him, and he took no note of the distance. 

That evening Peckham sent off a telegram of one hundred and eleven wordsto Heinrich Leitmann, of the Leitmann Orchestra, and Monday afternoonthe following answer came:

 "Full Leitmann Orchestra can engage for Springtown, evening of 19th. Terms, five thousand dollars, expenses included. Answer before 13th. Buffalo, N. Y. 

 (Signed) "H. LEITMANN. "

And now Lewis Peckham came out a full-fledged speculator. He sold out offour mines and bought into six; he changed his ventures three times intwenty-four hours, each time on a slight rise. He haunted thestockbroker's offices, watching out for "pointers"; he button-holedevery third man on the street; he drank in every hint that was droppedin his hearing. On Tuesday afternoon he "cleaned up" his capital andfound himself in possession of three thousand five hundred dollars. 

"Peckham's going it hard, " men said at the club. "He must be awfullybitten. "

All day Wednesday he could not muster courage to put his money intoanything, though stocks were booming on every hand. And yet onWednesday, as on Monday and on Tuesday, he did his office work andsuperintended that of his subordinates methodically and exactly. Thesubstratum of character which the long-headed Hillerton had built upon, held firm. 

On Wednesday evening Peckham stood, wild-eyed and haggard, in the lightof Estabrook's drug-store and scanned the faces of the foot-passengers. Early in the evening Elliot Chittenden came along with a grip-sack inhis hand, just down from Lame Gulch. Peckham fell upon him like afootpad, whispering hoarsely:

"For God's sake give me a pointer. "

"Jove!" said Chittenden, afterward, "I thought it was a hold-up, sure astrumps. "

At the moment, however, he maintained his composure and only said:

"The smelter returns from the Boa Constrictor are down to-day. Twohundred and seventeen dollars to the ton. I've got all the stuff I cancarry, so I don't mind letting you in. The papers will have itto-morrow, though they're doing their best to keep it back. "

Into the Boa Constrictor Peckham plunged the next morning, for all hewas worth. His money brought him ten thousand shares. The morning papersdid not have it, and all that day the Boa Constrictor lay as torpid asany other snake in cold weather. Peckham's face had taken on the tense, wild look of the gambler. He left the office half a dozen times duringthe day to look at the stock-boards. He had a hundred minds about takinghis money out and putting it into something else. But nothing elsepromised anything definite, and he held on. 

The evening papers gave the smelter returns, precisely as Chittenden hadstated them. Now would the public "catch on" quick enough, or would theytake ten days to do what they might as well come to on the spot?

At nine o'clock the next morning, Peckham was on the street lying inwait for an early broker. It was not until half-past nine that theybegan to arrive. 

"Any bids for Boa Constrictor?" Peckham inquired of Macdugal, thefirst-comer. 

"They were bidding forty cents at the club last night, with no takers. "

"Let me know if you get fifty cents bid. "

"How much do you offer?"

"Ten thousand shares. "

"Oh! see here, Peckham! I wouldn't sell out at such a price. The thing'ssure to go to a dollar inside of thirty days. "

"I don't care a _hang_ where it goes in thirty days. I want the moneyto-day. "

"Whew! Do you know anything better to put it into?"

"I know something _a million times better_!" cried Peckham, in a voicesharp with excitement. 

"The fellow's clean daft, " Macdugal remarked to his partner, a fewminutes later. 

"I should say so!" was the reply. "Queer, too, how suddenly it takes'em. A week ago I should have said that was the coolest head of the lot. He didn't seem to care a chuck for the whole business. Wonder if he'sgone off his base since Hillerton was laid up. Hope he isn't in for aswindle. He'd be just game for a sharper to-day. "

At noon Peckham sold his ten thousand shares of B. C. For five thousanddollars. He could have got six thousand the next morning, but then, ashe reflected, what good would it have done him? His first act afterdepositing the check received for his stock, was to send the followingtelegram:

 "Leitmann Orchestra engaged for Springtown, May 19th. Five thousand dollars deposited in First National Bank. Particulars by letter. 

 (Signed) "LEWIS PECKHAM. "

It is not a usual thing for an impecunious young man to invest fivethousand dollars in a single symphony concert, but there was one featureof the affair which was more unusual still; namely, the fact that theconsummation of that same young man's hopes was complete. For twobeatific hours on the evening of the memorable 19th of May, LewisPeckham's cup was full. He sat among the people in the balcony, quietand intent, taking no part in the applause, looking neither to the rightnor to the left. But if he gave no outward sign, perhaps it was becausehis spirit was so far uplifted as to be out of touch with his body. 

The money which he had expended in the gratification of what theuninitiated would call a whim, seemed to him the paltriest detail, quiteunworthy of consideration. When he thought of it at all it was to recallthe story of the gaunt customer who paid so handsomely for his whisky, and to note the confirmation of his theory, that "if you only wantanything bad enough no price is too high to pay for it. "

And in still another particular Lewis Peckham's experience was unique. He never gambled again. He had a feeling that he had got all he wasentitled to from the fickle goddess. When pressed to try his luck oncemore he would only say, with his old, indifferent shrug: "No, thanks. I've had my fling and now I've got through. "

X. 

A ROCKY MOUNTAIN SHIPWRECK. 

"Bixby's Art Emporium" was a temple of such modest exterior thatvisitors were conscious of no special disappointment upon finding thatthere was, if possible, less of "art" than of "emporium" within. Acouple of show-cases filled with agate and tiger-eye articles, questionable looking "gems, " and the like; a table in the centre of theshop piled high with Colorado views of every description; here and thereon the walls a poor water-color or a worse oil-painting; a desultoryNavajo rug on a chair: these humble objects constituted the nearestapproach to "art" that the establishment could boast. The distinctivefeature of the little shop was the show-case at the rear, filled withbooks of pressed wildflowers; these, at least, were the chief source ofincome in the business, and therefore Marietta spent every oddhalf-hour in the manufacture of them. A visitor, when he entered, wasapt to suppose that the shop was empty; for the black, curly head bentover the work at the window behind the back counter was not immediatelydiscernible. It was a fascinating head, as the most unimpressionablevisitor could not fail to observe when the tall figure rose from behindthe counter, --fascinating by reason of the beautiful hair, escaping insoft tendrils from the confining knot; fascinating still more by reasonof the perfect grace of poise. The face was somewhat sallow and verythin; care and privation had left their marks upon it. The mouth wasfinely modelled, shrewd and humorous; but it was the eyes, dark, anddarkly fringed as those of a wood-nymph, that dominated the face; onehad a feeling that here was where the soul looked out. To hear Mariettaspeak, however, was something of a disenchantment; her tone was so verymatter-of-fact, her words so startlingly to the point. If the soullooked out at the eyes, the lips at least had little to say of it. 

The visitor, if a stranger, had an excellent opportunity of making hisobservations on these points, for Marietta usually remained standing, in a skeptical attitude, behind the distant counter until he had shownsigns of "business" intentions. She was very ready to stand up and resther back, but she had no idea of coming forward to indulge an aimlesscuriosity as to the origin and price of her art treasures. An oldcustomer, on the other hand, was treated with an easy good-fellowship somarked that only those who liked "that sort of thing" ever became oldcustomers. 

"Well, how's everything?" was the usual form of greeting, as the tallwillowy figure passed round behind the counters and came opposite thenew-comer. 

"Did your folks like the frame?" would come next, if the customerchanced to have had a frame sent home recently. Marietta was agent for aDenver art firm, which framed pictures at a "reasonable figure"; orrather, Jim was the agent, and Jim being Marietta's husband, and toosick a man of late to conduct his business, did not have to be reckonedwith. 

In spite of the fact that she was generally known as "Mrs. Jim, " manypeople forgot that Marietta had a husband, for he was never visiblenow-a-days. But Marietta never forgot, never for one single instant, thewasted figure in the easy chair at the window above the shop, the palesunken face with the shining eyes, turned always toward the stairway theinstant her foot touched the lower step. The look of radiant welcomethat greeted her as often as her head appeared above the opening on alevel with the uneven deal floor, that look was always worth coming upfor. 

She did not bring her work and sit upstairs with Jim, because there wasbut one small window in the dingy, slant-roofed loft, that served asbed-chamber, kitchen, and parlor, and she knew he liked to sit at thewindow and watch the panorama of the street below. The broad, sunnySpringtown thoroughfare, with its low, irregular wooden structures, likely, at any moment, to give place to ambitious business "blocks";with its general air of incompleteness and transitoriness brought intostrong relief against the near background of the Rocky Mountains, wasalive with human interest. Yet, singularly enough, it was not thecowboy, mounted on his half-broken bronco that interested Jim; not theranch wagon, piled high with farm produce, women, and children; not eventhe Lame Gulch "stage, "--a four-seated wagon, so crowded withrough-looking men that their legs dangled outside like fringe on acowboy's "shaps, "--none of these sights made much impression on the sickman at his upper window. The work-a-day side of life was far toofamiliar to Jim to impress him as being picturesque or dramatic. What hedid care for, what roused and satisfied his imagination, was what wasknown in his vocabulary as "style. " It was to the "gilded youth" ofSpringtown that he looked for his entertainment. He liked the yellowfore-and-aft buckboards, he enjoyed the shining buggies, especiallywhen their wheels were painted red; dog-carts and victorias ranked highin his esteem. He knew, to be sure, very little about horses; their mostsalient "points" escaped him: he gave indiscriminate approval to everywell-groomed animal attached to a "stylish" vehicle, and the more themerrier! It is safe to declare that he was a distinctly happier man fromthat day forward on which Mr. Richard Dayton first dazzled the eyes ofSpringtown with his four-in-hand. 

This happened early in February and the day chanced to be a warm one, sothat Jim's window was open. He was sitting there, gazing abstractedly atthe Peak which rose, a great snowy dome, above Tang Ling's shop acrossthe way. Jim seldom spoke of the mountains, nor was he aware of payingany special attention to them. "I ain't much on Nature, " he had alwaysmaintained; and since Marietta admitted the same lack in herself thereseemed to be nothing in that to regret. Yet it is nevertheless true thatJim had his thoughts, as he sat, abstractedly gazing at those shiningheights, thoughts of high and solemn things which his condition broughtnear to him, thoughts which he rarely said anything about. To-day, as hewatched the deep blue shadows brooding upon the Peak, he was wonderingin a child-like way what Heaven would be like. Suddenly the musicalclink of silver chains struck his ear, and the look of abstractionvanished. He had never heard those bridle chains before. Somebody hadgot something new! A moment more, and, with a fine rush and jingle, anda clear blast from the horn, the four-in-hand dashed by. 

"Hurrah!" Jim cried huskily, as Marietta's foot trod the stair. 

"I say, Jim! You seen 'em?"

She came up panting, for the stairs were very steep and narrow. 

"Seen 'em? I rather guess! Wasn't it bully? Do you reckon they'll comeback this way?"

"Course they will! Don't you s'pose they like to show themselves off?And the horn! did you hear the horn, Jim? I wonder if that's the waythey sound in Switzerland!"

She came up and stood with her hand on Jim's shoulder, looking down intothe street. 

"And just to think of it, Jim!" she said, a moment later. "They say he'smade lots of money right here in mines! If we was in mines we might havemade some. "

"More likely to lose it, " Jim answered. He was not of the stuff thatspeculators are made of. 

The shop-bell rang, and Marietta hurried downstairs, to spend tenminutes in selling a ten-cent Easter card; while Jim sat on, forgettinghis burden of weakness and pain, and all his far-away dreams, inanticipation of the returning four-in-hand. 

In Marietta, too, the jingle of the four-in-hand had struck a newkey-note; her thoughts had taken a new turn. If Mr. Dayton had mademoney in mines why should not she and Jim do the same? They needed itfar more than he did. To him it only meant driving four horses insteadof one; to them it might mean driving one horse once in a while. Itmight even mean giving up the tiresome, profitless shop, and going tolive in a snug little house of their own, where there should be a porchfor Jim in pleasant weather and, for cold days, a sitting-room with twowindows instead of one where she could work at her flower-books, whilethey planned what they should do when Jim got well. She sat over herpressed flowers, which she handled with much skill, while she revolvedthese thoughts in her mind. She was busy with her columbines, a largefolio of which lay on a table near by. At her left hand was a pile ofsquare cards with scalloped edges, upon which the columbines were to beaffixed; at her right was a small glass window-pane smeared with whatshe called "stickum. " As she deftly lifted the flowers, one by one, without ever breaking a fragile petal, she laid each first upon the"stickum"-covered square of glass and then upon the Bristol-board. Shewas skilful in always placing the flower precisely where it was toremain upon the page, so that the white surface was kept unstained. Thenshe further secured each brittle stem with a tiny strip of paper pastedacross the end. She lifted a card and surveyed her work critically, thinking the while, not of the wonderful golden and purple flower, holding its beautiful head with as stately a grace as if it were stillswaying upon its stem, but of the great "mining-boom" that was upon thetown, and of the chances of a fortune. 

Half-an-hour had passed since the shop-bell had last tinkled, andMarietta was beginning to think of making Jim a flying call, when sheheard his cane rapturously banging the floor above. This was the signalfor her to look out into the street, which she promptly did, and, behold! the four-in-hand had stopped before the door, a groom wasstanding at the leaders' heads, and the master of this splendid equipagewas just coming in, his figure looming large and imposing in thedoorway. 

"Good morning, Mrs. Jim, " he called before he was well inside the shop. "I want one of your ten-dollar flower-books. "

Quite unmoved by the lavishness of her customer, Marietta rose in herstately way, and drew forth several specimens of her most expensiveflower-book. Dayton examined them with an attempt to be discriminating, remarking that the book was for some California friends of his wife whowere inclined to be "snifty" about Colorado flowers. 

"That's the best of the lot, " Marietta volunteered, singling out onewhich her customer had overlooked. 

"So it is, " he replied; "do it up for me, please. "

This Marietta proceeded to do in a very leisurely manner. She was makingup her mind to a bold step. 

"Say, Mr. Dayton, " she queried, as she took the last fold in thewrapping paper; "what's the best mine to go into?"

"The best mine? Oh, I wouldn't touch one of them if I were you!"

"Yes, you would, if you were me! So you might as well tell me a good oneor I might make a mistake. "

She held her head with the air of a princess, while the look of awood-nymph still dwelt in her shadowy eyes, but words and tone meant"business. "

"How much money have you got to lose?"

"Oh, fifty or a hundred dollars, " she said carelessly. 

Dayton strolled to the door and back again before he answered. He wasannoyed with Mrs. Jim for placing him in such a position, but he did notsee his way out of it. The next man she asked might be a sharper. Hisideas of woman's "sphere" were almost mediæval, but somehow they did notseem to fit Mrs. Jim's case. 

"Well, " he said at last with evident reluctance; "the 'Horn of Plenty'doesn't seem to be any worse than the others, and it may be a grainbetter. But it's all a gamble, just like roulette or faro, and I shouldthink you had better keep out of it altogether. "

The "Horn of Plenty"! It was a name to appeal to the most sluggishimagination; the mere sound of it filled Marietta with a joyfulconfidence. Within the hour she had hailed a passing broker andnegotiated with him for five hundred shares of the stock at twenty centsa share. 

It was not without a strange pang, to be sure, that she wrote out hercheck for the amount; for just as she was signing her name the unwelcomethought crossed her mind that the person who was selling that amount ofstock for a hundred dollars must believe that sum of money to be a moredesirable possession than the stock! She felt the meaning of thesituation very keenly, but she did not betray her misgivings. As shefinished the scrawling signature she only lifted her head with a defiantlook, and said: "If anybody tells Jim, I'll _chew 'em up_!"

Inches, the broker, thus admonished, only laughed. Indeed, the thingInches admired most in Mrs. Jim was her forcible manner of expressingherself. He admired and liked her well enough, for that and for otherreasons, to take a very disinterested pleasure in putting her in the wayof turning an honest penny. 

The broker's faith in the "Horn of Plenty" was almost as implicit asMarietta's own, and it was with no little pride that he brought thecertificate in to her the following day, and unfolded it to her dazzledcontemplation. It was a very beauteous production done in green andgold, the design being suggestive and encouraging. It represented awoman clad in green, pointing with a magic golden wand in her left handtoward a group of toiling green miners, while from a golden cornucopiain her right she poured a shower of gold upon an already portentouspyramid of that valuable metal, planted upon a green field. 

As Marietta refolded the crisply rustling paper, Inches bent his headtoward her and said, confidentially: "She's bound to touch fifty centsinside of thirty days;" and Marietta, still thinking of the bountifullady of the golden cornucopia, believed him. 

"Inside of thirty days" the "H. O. P. , " as it was familiarly called, wasselling at forty-five cents, and the world was very much agog on thesubject. There had been fluctuations in the meanwhile, fluctuationswhich Marietta watched with eager intentness. Once, on the strength ofdisquieting rumors about the management, the stock dropped to sixteencents and Marietta's hopes sank accordingly; she felt as if she hadpicked Jim's pocket. But the "H. O. P. " soon rallied, and day by day itcrept upwards while Marietta's spirits crept upwards with it, cautiously, questioningly. Should she sell? Should she hold on? If onlyshe might talk it over with Jim! That was something she poignantlymissed; she had never had a secret from Jim before. To make up for herreticence on this point she used to tell him more minutely than ever ofall that went on in the shop below. Jim thought he had never knownMarietta so entertaining. 

"I say, Marietta, it's a shame you're nothing but a shop-keeper's wife!"he said to her one evening as she sat darning stockings by thelamp-light in the dingy attic room. "You'd ought to have been a duchessor a governor's wife or something like that, so's folks would have foundout how smart you was. "

"Listen at him!" cried Marietta. 

The words might have offended the taste of the governor who had failedto secure this valuable matrimonial alliance, but the poise of thepretty head, as she cast an affectionate look upon Jim, lying on the oldsofa, would have graced the proudest duchess of them all. 

Now the "Horn of Plenty" was a Lame Gulch stock, and, since themining-camp of Lame Gulch had been in existence less than a year, thevalue of any mine up there was a very doubtful quantity. It was perhapsthe proximity of the camp to Springtown, that fired the imagination ofthe Springtown public, perhaps the daily coming and going of peoplebetween the two points. Be that as it may, the head must have been avery level one indeed that could keep its balance through the excitementof that winter's "boom. " There were many residents of Springtown who hada sentiment for the Peak, more intelligent and more imaginative than anyMarietta could boast, yet it is probable that the best nature-lover ofthem all shared something of her feeling, now that she had come toregard the Peak as the mountain on the other side of which the LameGulch treasures lay awaiting their resurrection. 

"Just the other side of the Peak!" What magic in those words, spokenfrom time to time by one and another of the Springtown people. "Just theother side of the Peak!" Marietta would say to herself, lifting to thenoble mountain eyes bright with an interest such as he in his grandestmood had never awakened there before. 

Suppose the "Horn of Plenty" should go to a dollar!--to fivedollars, --to ten dollars, --to twenty-five dollars! Her mind took theleap with ease and confidence. Had not Bill Sanders said that there wereforty millions in it, and had he not seen the mine with his own eyes?Marietta had a mental picture of a huge mountain of solid gold, andwhen, to complete the splendor of the impression, men talked of "freegold, " the term seemed to her to signify a buoyant quality, the qualityof pouring itself out in spontaneous plenty. She heard much talk of thiskind, for the "H. O. P. " was the topic of the hour, and her customersdiscussed it among themselves. Forty millions almost in plain sight!That was forty dollars a share, and she had five hundred shares! And allthis time she was thinking, not of wealth and luxury, but only of a snugcottage in a side street, where there should be two windows in thesitting-room, where she might sit and chat with Jim while she made herflower-books, planning what they should do when he got well. How littleshe asked; how reasonable it was, how fair! And if only the "H. O. P. "were to go to five dollars a share she would venture it. 

Meanwhile people were bidding forty-five cents, and Inches had calledtwice in one morning to ask if she would not sell at that price. 

"What makes them want it so much?" she asked on the occasion of hissecond visit. 

"Oh, just an idea they've got that it's going higher, " Inches answeredindifferently. 

"Well, s'posing it is; why should I want to sell?"

"Why, you'd have made a pretty good thing in it, and you might like tohave your bird in hand, don't you know?"

Marietta sat down to her flower-books and worked on composedly, whileInches still lingered. 

"That's a real pretty painting of the Peak over there, " he remarkedpresently, nodding his head toward a crude representation of thatmuch-travestied mountain. 

Marietta knew better, but she said nothing. 

"What do you ask for that now?" he persisted. 

"Oh, I guess about a hundred dollars, " she returned facetiously. "ThePeak comes high now-a-days, 'cause Lame Gulch is right round on theother side. "

There was another pause before the broker spoke again. 

"Then, s'posing I could get you forty-six cents for your stock, wouldyou take it? That's rather above the market price, you know. "

"'Taint up to my price, " said Marietta, trying to make a group ofpainter's brush look artistic. 

"What would you take for it then?" asked Inches. 

Marietta put down her work and drew herself up, to rest her back, andmake an end of the interview at a blow. 

"Look here, Mr. Inches, " she said, with decision; "seeing you want thestock so bad, I guess I'll hold on to it!"

She was still holding on with unwavering persistence when, a few daysafter that, Dayton came into the shop. He wondered, as he entered thedoor, what could be the unpleasant association that was aroused in himby the familiar atmosphere of skins and dried flowers and general"stock in trade" which pervaded the place. No sooner did his eye fallupon Marietta coming towards him, however, than he recalled thedistasteful part of adviser which had been forced upon him on theoccasion of his last visit. He tried to think that he had washed hishands of the whole matter, but, "Mrs. Jim, " he found himself saying;"did you go into mines the other day?"

"Yes. "

"What did you buy?"

"H. O. P. "

"What did you pay?"

"Twenty cents. "

"Sold yet?"

"No. "

Dayton took the little parcel she was handing him. He had come in for alead-pencil and had bought, in addition, a stamp-box, a buttonhook, anda plated silver photograph frame, not one of which newly acquiredtreasures he had the slightest use for. They were very neatly tied up, however. He wished Mrs. Jim would stick to her legitimate business whichshe did uncommonly well. 

"I think I would sell out my 'H. O. P. ' if I were you, " he said. 

"Isn't it going any higher?" she asked. 

"Very likely; but it's a swindle. "

"What do you mean?"

"Well, I mean that the management's bad, and they don't know the firstthing about what they've got, any way. Honestly, Mrs. Jim, it isn't safeto hold. "

Marietta's heart sank; if she sold her stock what was to become of thelittle house with the two windows in the sitting-room? She did notreply, and Dayton went on:

"Of course, " he said; "I can't tell that the thing won't go to a dollar, but there is really no basis for it. I've sold out every share I held, and I don't regret it, though it has gone up ten points since then. "

Marietta regarded him attentively. There was no mistaking hissincerity, --and he probably knew what he was talking about. 

"Well, " she said at last, with a profound sigh; "I guess I'll do as yousay. It worked pretty well the other time. "

"That's right, Mrs. Jim, and supposing you let me have your stock. I canprobably get you fifty cents for it in the course of the day. "

She took the certificate from a drawer close at hand, and having signedit, she gave one lingering farewell look at the green lady and hergolden horn. 

"I may as well write a check for the amount now, " Dayton said. 

"But maybe you can't get it. "

"More likely to get a little over. If I do I'll bring it in. "

Dayton looked into her face as he spoke, and its beauty struck him aspathetic. There were lines and shadows there which he had not noticedbefore. 

"I wish, Mrs. Jim, " he said, "that you wouldn't do anything more inmines; it's an awfully risky business at the best. There isn't one of usthat knows the first thing about it. "

She gave him a sceptical look; was he so entirely sincere, after all?

"Some of you know enough about it to make an awful lot of money in it, "she answered quietly. 

"That isn't knowledge, " he declared; "it's luck!"

"Comes to the same thing in the end, " said Marietta. 

If it had not been for those pathetic lines and shadows, Dayton wouldhave turned on his heel then and there, disgusted with what seemed tohim unfeminine shrewdness. As it was, he said: "Well, then, why not letme be your broker? I'm on the street half the time, and I could attendto your business a great deal better than you could. "

Marietta did not commit herself to any agreement. She put her checkaway, still too regretful about the dreams she had relinquished, torejoice in the mere doubling of her money. 

Late in the afternoon she was paying a visit to Jim. In spite of thebrilliant sunshine that flooded the little garret, at this hour, theplace seemed dingier and drearier than ever. Jim, too, she thought, wasnot looking quite as well as usual; his hand as she took it was hot anddry. She knelt down beside him and they looked out at the Peak, risinggrand and imposing beyond the low roofs. Marietta was thinking of thegold, "just round on the other side, " but Jim's thoughts had wanderedfarther still; or was it, after all, nearer to the sick man with thewistful light in his eyes?

"I say, Marietta, " he said, "I wonder what Heaven's like. "

She had never heard him speak like that, and the words went to her heartlike a knife. But she answered, gently:

"I guess we don't know much about it, Jim; only that it'll be Heaven. "

"I suppose when we get there, you and I, Springtown will seem very faraway. "

"I don't know, Jim, " Marietta said, looking still out toward the Peak, but thinking no longer of the gold on the other side. "I shouldn't likeany of our life together ever to seem very far away. "

Just then the sound of the horn rang musically down the street and amoment later the brake went by. The horses' heads were toward home andthey knew it; the harness jingled and glittered. On the brake werehalf-a-dozen well-dressed people laughing and talking gaily; health andprosperity seemed visibly in attendance upon that little company offortunates. They passed like a vision, and again the sound of the horncame ringing down the street. 

Jim turned and looked at Marietta who had been almost as excited as he. A thousand thoughts had chased themselves through her brain as the brakewent by. She sighed in the energetic manner peculiar to her, and thenshe said: "O Jim! If you could only be like that for just one day!"

Perhaps he had had the same thought but her words dispelled it. 

"Never mind, Etta, " he said. "I wouldn't change with him;" and Mariettashut away the little speech in her heart to be happy over at herleisure. 

The next day the invalid was not as well as usual and Mrs. Jim spenthalf her time running up and down stairs. Inches came in in the courseof the day and offered her sixty cents for her "Horn of Plenty, " and shethought with a pang how fast it was going up. The thought haunted herall day long, but she could not leave Jim to take any steps towardretrieving her opportunity, and after that first visit Inches did notcome in again. She took out her big check once or twice in the course ofthe day and looked at it resentfully; and as she brooded upon thematter, it was borne in upon her with peculiar force that she had made afatal blunder in exchanging her "chances" for that fixed, inexpansivesum. Had it not been cowardly in her to yield so easily? SupposingDayton himself had lacked courage at the critical moment; where wouldhis four-in-hand have been to-day? She was sure that no timid speculatorhad ever made a fortune; on the contrary, she had often heard it saidthat a flash of courage at the right moment was the very essence ofsuccess in speculation. She remembered the expression "essence ofsuccess. "

[Illustration: "THEY LOOKED OUT AT THE PEAK. "]

By the time evening came the fever of speculation was high in her veins, and urged on by her own brooding fancies, uncontradicted from without, unexposed to the light of day, she did an incredible thing. 

As she drew forth her writing materials in order to put her new andstartling resolution into execution, she paused and looked about thefamiliar little shop with a feeling of estrangement. There was anincongruity between the boldness of the thing she was about to do, andthe hard and fast limitations of her lot, which the sight of thosehumble properties brought sharply home to her. The first pen she took upwas stiff and scratchy; the sound of it was like a challenge to theouter world to come and pass judgment upon her. She flung the pen to oneside in nervous trepidation, and then she searched until she found onethat was soft and pliable, and went whispering over the paper like afellow-conspirator. 

This was what she wrote:

 "DEAR MR. DAYTON, "I want to go into the 'Horn of Plenty' again, and I can't get away to attend to it. I enclose your check, and one of my own for $400. Please buy me what the money will bring. They say it isn't a swindle, and any way I want some. You said to come to you, and that was the same as saying you'd do it, if I asked you to. I don't care what you pay; get what you can for the money. 

 "Yours truly, "M. BIXBY. "

Another morning found Jim so ill that they sent for the doctor. On thesame day Inches came in and offered seventy-five cents for the stock. Marietta had not told him that it was sold and she did not propose to doso. In the afternoon the price had "jumped" to ninety cents, but by thattime she was too anxious about Jim to care. 

For five weeks the "Art Emporium" was closed, and in that time the faceof the world had changed for Marietta. She realized the change when shecame downstairs and opened the shop again. It was impossible to feelthat life was restored to its old basis. There was a change too in her, which was patent to the most casual observer. It was, indeed, a very wanand thin Marietta that at last came forward to meet her customers; hereyes looked alarmingly big, and though nothing could disturb the pose ofthe beautiful head, there was a droop in the figure, that betokenedbodily and mental exhaustion. 

A good many customers came in to make Easter purchases, --for thefollowing Sunday was Easter, --and many others to inquire for Jim. As theold, familiar life began to reassert itself, as she began to feel athome again in the old, accustomed surroundings, her mind recurred, in ahalf-dazed way, to her speculation. She did not herself know much aboutit, for Dayton had never sent her her certificate. Probably he had comewith it when the shop was closed. She supposed she must be too tired tohave much courage; that must be why her heart sank at the thought ofwhat she had done. She was sitting by the work-table, her head in herhands, pondering dully. At the sound of the shop-bell she looked up, mechanically, and saw Inches coming in. 

"Good morning, Mrs. Jim, " he said. "How's your husband?"

"Jim's better, thank you, " she replied, and the sound of her ownconfident words dispelled the clouds. 

Inches looked at her narrowly, and then he began pulling the ears of amounted fox-skin that was lying on the counter, as he remarked casually:"Hope you got rid of your 'H. O. P. ' in time. "

"In time?" she asked. "In time? What do you mean?"

"Why, before they closed down. You sold out, I hope?"

There was a sudden catch in her breath. 

"Yes, I sold out some time ago. "

"Glad of that, " he declared, with very evident relief, suddenly losinginterest in the fox's ears. Inches had none of Dayton's prejudices inregard to woman's "sphere, " but he was none the less rejoiced to knowthat this particular woman, with the tired-looking eyes, had not "gothurt, " as he would have put it. 

"It's been a bad business all round, " he went on, waxing confidential ashe was prone to do. "Why, I knew a man that bought twenty thousandshares at a dollar-ten three weeks ago, just before she closed down, andhe's never had the sand to sell. "

"What could he get to-day?" Marietta asked. Her voice sounded in herears strange and far away. 

"Well, I don't know. I was offered some at six cents, but I don't knowanybody that wants it. "

Marietta's throat felt parched and dry, and now there was a singing inher ears; but she gave no outward sign. 

"Pretty hard on some folks, " she remarked. 

"I should say so!"

There was a din in her ears all that afternoon, which was perhaps afortunate circumstance, for it shut out all possibility of thought. Itwas not until night came that the din stopped, and her brain becameclear again, --cruelly, pitilessly clear. 

Deep into the night she lay awake tormenting herself with figures. Howhideous, how intolerable they were! They passed and repassed in herbrain in the uncompromising search-light of conscience, like malicious, mouthing imps. They were her debts and losses, they stood for disgraceand penury, they menaced the very foundation of her life and happiness. 

Doubtless the man who had put many thousands into the "Horn of Plenty, "and had lacked the "sand" to sell, would have wondered greatly that afellow-creature should be suffering agony on account of a few hundreddollars. Yet he, in his keenest pang of disappointment, knew nothingwhatever of the awful word "ruin"; while Marietta, staring up into thedarkness, was getting that lesson by heart. 

The town-clock striking three seemed to pierce her consciousness andrelieve the strain. She wished the sofa she was lying upon were not sohard and narrow; perhaps if she were more comfortable she might be ableto sleep, and then, in the morning, she might see light. Of course therewas light, somewhere, if she could only find it; but who ever found thelight, lying on a hard sofa, in pitchy darkness? Perhaps if she were toget up and move about things would seem less intolerable. And with themere thought of action the tired frame relaxed, the straining eyes weresealed with sleep, the curtain of unconsciousness had fallen upon thetroubled stage of her mind. 

And when, at dawn, Jim opened frightened eyes, and struggled with aterrible oppression to speak her name, Marietta was still sleepingprofoundly. 

"Etta!" he gasped. "O, Etta!"

And Marietta heard the whispered name, and thrusting out her hands, asif to tear away a physical bond, broke through the torpor that possessedher, and stood upon her feet. She staggered, white and trembling, toJim's bedside, and there, in the faint light, she saw that he was dying. 

"Etta, Etta, " he whispered, "I want you!"

She sank upon her knees beside him, but the hand she folded in her ownwas already lifeless. 

Slowly the light increased in that dingy garret, until the sun shonefull upon the face of the Peak, fronting the single window of thechamber in uncompassionate splendor. Occasional sounds of traffic cameup from the street below; the day had begun. And still Marietta kneltbeside the bed, clasping the hand she loved, with a passionate purposeto prolong the mere moment of possession that was all that was left hernow, all it was worth being alive for. He wanted her, he wantedher, --and oh, the years and years that he must wait for her, in thatstrange, lonely, far-away heaven!

"Jim, Jim, " she muttered from time to time, with a dry gasp in herthroat, that almost choked her; "Jim, O Jim!"

By-and-by, when the sun was high in the heavens, and all the world wasabroad, she got upon her feet, and went about the strange new businessthat death puts upon the broken-hearted. 

The day after the funeral was the third of April, and Marietta knew thatall her April bills were lying in the letterbox, the silent menace whichhad seemed so terrible to her the other day. Well, --that at least wasnothing to her now. So much her heart-break had done for her, that allthe lesson of ruin she had conned through those horrible black hours, when Jim was dying and she did not know it, --that lesson at least hadlost its meaning. Ruin could not hurt Jim now, and she?--she might evenfind distraction in it, --find relief. 

She went down into the dimly lighted shop, where the shades were closelydrawn in the door and in the broad show-window. In that strange middaytwilight, she gathered up her mail, and then she seated herself in herold place behind the counter, and began the examination of it. 

There were all the bills, just as she had anticipated; bills for foodand bills for medicine; bills for all those useless odds and ends whichmade up her stock in trade, which she and Jim had been so proud of a fewyears ago when they first came to Springtown. She wrote out the varioussums in a long column, just to look at them all together, and to feelhow little harm they could do her; and in the midst of the dull, lifeless work, she came upon a letter which did not look like a bill. Asshe drew it from the envelope, two slips of paper fell out of it, twoslips of paper which she picked up and read, with but a dazed, bewildered attention. They were the checks she had sent to Dayton amonth ago; his own check for $250; hers for $400. 

Marietta, in her humble joys and sorrows, had never known the irony ofFate, and hence she could not understand about those checks. The meaningof the letter was blurred as she read it. It was from Dayton. He couldnot know that Jim was dead, for he said nothing of it. But if there wasany one who did not know that Jim was dead, could it be true? Her heartgave a wild leap, and she half rose to her feet. What if she were to runup those stairs, quickly, breathlessly? Oh, what then?

But the stillness of the closed shop, the strange half-light that camethrough the drawn shades, her own black dress, recalled her from thatswift and cruel hope, and again she set herself to read the letter. 

The words all seemed straight enough, if she could only make sense ofthem. He had but just read her letter, being returned that morning fromthe East. The letter had come the day he left town, and thinking that itwas a receipted bill, he had locked it up, unopened, in his desk. Hefeared that Mrs. Jim had been anxious about the matter, and he hastenedto relieve her mind. While he apologized for his own carelessness, hecongratulated her upon her escape. 

"He congratulates me, he congratulates me!" she whispered hoarsely; "Omy God!"

She did not yet comprehend the letter nor the checks which had flutteredto the floor. It was only the last sentence that she took note of, because of its jarring sense. 

Suddenly the meaning of it all broke upon her. Those were her checks!Ruin had evaded her! She could not prove upon it her loyalty to Jim, herloyalty to grief. Fate had shipwrecked her, and now it was decreed thatthe sun should shine and the sea subside in smiling peace. It was morethan she could bear. She flung the letter from her, and, stooping, shepicked up the checks and crushed them in her clenched hands. How daredthey come back to mock at her! How dared Fate take her all, and toss herwhat she did not value! How dared--Heaven? Was it Heaven she wasdefying? Ah! she must not lose her soul, Heaven knew she would not loseher soul--for Jim's sake!

She opened her clenched hands and smoothed out the checks, patiently, meekly; and then she went on with the bills, a strange calm in hermind, different from the calm of the last three days. 

And then, for the first time, it struck her that the bills were all madeout to Jim. 

 JAMES BIXBY, to HIRAM ROGERS, Dr. To JAMES WILKINS, Dr. To FIELDS & LYMAN, Dr. 

It was his name that would have been disgraced, not hers; his memorywould have been stained. She turned white with terror of the dangerpast. 

After a while she put the bills aside, and drew out her folios ofpressed flowers. It seemed a hundred years since she had worked uponthem. How exquisite they were, those delicate ghosts of flowers;--theregal columbine, the graceful gilia, coreopsis gleaming golden, anemones, pale and soft. How they kept their loveliness when life waspast! They were only flower memories, but how fair they were, and howlasting! No frost to blight them, no winds to tear their silken petalsany more! Well might they outlast the hand that pressed them!

And soon Marietta found herself doing the old, accustomed work with allthe old skill, and with a new grace and delicacy of touch. And when thefriends in her old home which she had left for Jim's sake, urged her tocome back to them, she answered, no;--she would rather stay in Coloradoand do her flower-books;--adding, in a hand that scrawled more thanusual with the effort for composure:

"They are my consolation. "

XI. 

A STROKE IN THE GAME. 

The mining boom was off, and Springtown was feeling the reaction asseverely as so sanguine and sunny a little place was capable of doing. To one who had witnessed, a year or more previous, the rising of thetide of speculation, whose tossing crest had flung its glittering dropsupon the loftiest and firmest rocks of the business community, thestreets of the little Rocky Mountain town had something the aspect ofthe shore at low tide. Such a witness was Harry Wakefield, if, indeed, aman may be said to have "witnessed" a commotion which has swept him offhis feet and whirled him about like a piece of driftwood. It was, to besure, quite in the character of a piece of driftwood that Wakefield hadlet himself be drawn into the whirlpool, and he could not escape thefeeling that, tossed as he was, high and dry upon the shore, he wasgetting quite as good as he deserved. 

"Yes, I'm busted!" he remarked to his friend Chittenden, thestock-broker, as the two men paused before the office-door of thelatter. "It was the Race-Horse that finished me up. No, thanks, I won'tcome in. A burnt child dreads the fire!"

"We're all cool enough now-a-days, " Chittenden replied, shrugging hisshoulders. "Couldn't get up a blaze to heat a flat-iron!" and he passedin to the office, with the air of a man whose occupation is gone. 

As Wakefield turned down the street, his eye fell upon a stock-boardacross the way, a board upon which had once been jotted down from day today, a record of his varying fortunes. He remembered how, a few monthsago, that same board showed white with Lame Gulch quotations. Hereflected that, while the price set against each stock had made but amodest showing, running from ten cents up into the second dollar, a manof sense, --supposing such a phenomenon to have weathered the"boom, "--would have been impressed with the fact that the valuation thusplaced upon the infant camp aggregated something like twenty millions ofdollars. The absurdity of the whole thing struck Wakefield with addedforce, as he read the solitary announcement which now graced theboard, --namely:

 "To exchange: 1000 Race-Horse for a bull-terrier pup. "

"Kind o' funny; ain't it?" said a voice close beside him. 

It was Dicky Simmons, a youth of seedy aspect, but a cheerfulcountenance, who had come up with him, and was engaged in the perusal ofthe same announcement. 

"Hullo, Simmons! Where do you hail from?"

"From Barnaby's ranch. I'm trying my hand at agriculture until thisthing's blown over!"

"Think it's going to?"

"Oh, yes! When the tide's dead low it's sure to turn!" and the oldhopeful look glistened in the boy's face. 

"That's the case in Nature, " Wakefield objected. "Nature hadn't anythingto do with the boom. It was contrary to all the laws. "

"Oh, I guess Nature has a hand in most things, " Dicky replied withcheerful assurance. "Anyhow she's made a big deal up at Lame Gulch, andthose of us who've got the sand to hold on will find that she's in themanagement. "

"Think so?"

"Sure of it!"

"Hope you're right. Anyhow, though, I'd try the old girl on agriculturefor a while, if I were you. How's Barnaby doing, by the way?"

"Holding on by the skin of his teeth. "

"What's wrong there?"

"Can't collect;" was the laconic reply. 

The two companions in adversity were walking toward the post-office, moved, perhaps, by the subtle attraction which that institutionexercises over the man who is "down on his luck. " There was no mail due, yet they turned, with one accord, in at the door, and repaired to theirrespective boxes. As Wakefield looked up from the inspection of hisempty one, he saw Simmons, with an open letter or circular in his hand. Catching Wakefield's eye he laughed. 

"Well?" Wakefield queried. 

"You know, Wake, " said Dicky, in a confidential tone. "The thing's toofunny to be serious. Here's the Trailing Arbutus (you're not in that, Ibelieve), capitalization a million and a half shares, calls a meetingof stockholders to consider how to raise money to get the mine out ofthe hands of a receiver. Now, guess how much money they want!"

"How much?"

"_Five hundred dollars!_ Five hundred dollars on a million and a halfshares! I say, Wake, they couldn't be funnier if they tried!"

Agreeable as Dicky's company usually was, Wakefield was glad when theboy hailed the Barnaby milk-cart, and betook himself and his insistentbrightness under its canvas shelter. The white covered wagon wentrattling out of town, and Wakefield, somewhat to his surprise, foundhimself striding after it. 

"Anyhow, he's hit it off better than I have, " he said to himself; and ashe perceived how rapidly the cart was disappearing, he had a sense ofbeing distanced, and he involuntarily quickened his pace. 

The street he was following was one that he strongly approved of, because it had the originality to cut diagonally across the rectangularplan of the town. The houses on either hand were small andunpretentious, but tidy little homesteads, and he did not like to thinkof the mortgages with which, according to Chittenden, the "boom" hadweighted more than one modest roof. In the strong sense of generaldisaster which he was struggling under, those mortgages seemed almostvisible to the eye. He was glad when he had left the town behind him, and was marching on between stretches of uncultivated prairie and barereddish hillocks. They, at least, stood for what they were, --and see, how the wildflowers had thrust themselves up through the harsh grittysand; that great tract of yellow vetches, for instance, that had broughtup out of the earth a glory of gold that might well put all Lame Gulchto the blush! Over yonder stood the Range, not beautiful, in theuncompromising noon light, but strong and steadfast, with an almostmoral vigor in its outlines. 

He had lost sight of the milk-cart altogether, and was plodding on, simply because there seemed to be nothing better to do with himself. Hepresently came opposite a low, conical hill which he recognized as "Mt. Washington, "--a hill whose elevation above sea-level was said to beprecisely that of New England's loftiest peak. Wakefield reflected thathe was never likely to reach that classic altitude with less exertionthan to-day, and that on the whole it would be rather pleasant thanotherwise to find himself at that particular height. There was abarbed-wire fence intervening, and it pleased him to take it "on thefly. " He had undoubtedly been going down-hill of late, but his legs, atleast, had held their own, he assured himself, with some satisfaction, as he alighted, right side up, within the enclosure. He thought, with awhimsical turn, of Pheidippides, the youth who used his legs to suchgood purpose; who "ran like fire, "--shouted, "Rejoice, we conquer!"--then"died in the shout for his meed. " How simple life once was, according toBrowning and the rest! What a muddle it was to-day, according to HarryWakefield! And all because a girl had refused him! He had been tryingall along not to think of Dorothy Ray, but by the time he had reachedthe summit of the hill, --that little round of red sand, where only asingle yellow cactus had had the courage to precede him, --he knew thathis hour of reckoning had come. He had gambled, yes; but it was for hersake he had gambled; he had lost, yes, but it was she he had lost. 

He flung himself down on the bare red hilltop, and with his chin in hishands, gazed across irrigated meadows and parched foothills to the grimslope of the mountains. And stretched there, with his elbows digginginto the sandy soil, his mind bracing itself against the everlastinghills, he let the past draw near. 

There was an atmosphere about that past, a play of light and shadow, amist of poetry and romance, that made the Colorado landscape in thesearching noon light seem typical of the life he had led there:--acrude, prosaic, _metallic_ sort of life. And after the first shrinkingfrom the past, his mind began to feel deliciously at home in it. 

How he had loved Dorothy Ray! How the thought of her had pervaded hislife, as the sunshine pervades a landscape! Yet not like the sunshine;for sunshine is fructifying, and his life had been singularly fruitless. There was no shirking the truth, that the year he had spent reading lawin her father's office, the year he had discovered that his old friendand playmate was the girl of his choice, had been a wasted year. In allthat did not directly concern her he had dawdled, and Dorothy knew andresented it. 

He remembered how, on one occasion, she had openly preferred Aleck Dorrto himself; Aleck Dorr, with his ugly face and boorish manners, who wascutting a dash with a newly acquired fortune. 

"Dorothy, " Wakefield asked abruptly, the next time he got speech ofher, --it was at the Assembly and she had only vouchsafed him twodances, --"Dorothy, what do you like about that boor?"

"In the first place he isn't a boor, " she answered. "He's asgentlemanlike as possible. "

"Supposing he is, then! That's a recommendation most of us possess. "

She gave him a scrutinizing, almost wistful look. How dear she was, standing there in the brilliant gas-light, fresh and natural in herball-dress and sparkling jewels as she had been when her hair hung downin a big braid over her gingham frock. 

"You gentlemanlike? That's something you could never be, Harry, --becauseyou are a gentleman. But that's all you are, " she added, with a suddenimpatience that checked his rising elation. 

"I don't see that there was any call for snubbing, " he retorted angrily. He was often angry with Dorothy; that was part of the oldgood-fellowship he had used to value so much, but which seemed soinsufficient now. 

"Snubbing? I thought I made you a very pretty compliment, " she answered, with a little caressing tone that he found illogically comforting. 

"You haven't told me why you like this gentlemanlike boor, " hepersisted. 

"I should think anybody might see that! I like him because he amounts tosomething; because he has made a fortune, if you insist. It takes a_man_ to do that!"

Upon which, before Wakefield had succeeded in framing a suitable retort, Dorr came up, with a ponderous joke, and claimed a promised waltz. 

Well! Dorr need not be in such thundering spirits! He had no chance withher at any rate!

And only a few months later it turned out that he, Harry Wakefield, hadas little chance as Dorr. 

At this point in his reflections Wakefield's elbows began to feel roughand gritty. He turned himself round and sat with his back to themountains, looking eastward, his hands clasping one knee. He was gladthe prairie was broken up into mounds and hillocks over there, and hadnot the look of the sea that it took on from some points of view. Therewas a group of pines off to the left; he had been too preoccupied toobserve them as he came along the road, --strangely enough too, for agroup of trees is an unusual sight out on the prairie. What a lot oftrees there were in the East though, and how wofully he had come togrief among them up there on the North Shore! Only a year ago it hadhappened, only a year ago, in the fragrant New England June! His marriedsister had had Dorothy and himself visiting her at the same time. Well, Fanny had done her best for him, though it was no good. He wondered, inpassing, how it happened that a fellow could come to care more foranybody else than for a sister like Fanny!

He had found Dorothy sitting in perfect idleness under a big pine-treethat lovely June morning. There were robins hopping about the lawn; thevoices of his sister's children came, shrill and sweet, calling to oneanother as they dug in the garden by the house. The tide was coming in;he could hear it break against the rocks over yonder, while the farstretches of sea glimmered softly in the sunshine. Dorothy looked sosweet and beneficent as she sat under the big pine-tree in the summersunshine, that all his misgivings vanished. Before he knew what he wasabout he had "asked her. "

And here the little drama was blurred and muffled in his memory. Hewondered, as he clasped his knees and studied the tops of thepine-trees, how he had put the question; whether he had perhaps put itwrong. He could not recall a word he had said; but her words in replyfell as distinct on his ear, as the note of the meadow-lark, down thereby the roadside. How the note of the meadow-lark shot a thrill throughthe thin Colorado air, --informed with a soul the dazzling day! Howcruelly sweet Dorothy's voice had been, as she said:

"No, Harry, I couldn't!"

It had made him so angry that he hardly knew how deep his hurt was. 

"You have no right to say no!" he had heard himself say. 

He could not remember whether that was immediately, or after an intervalof discussion. She had stood up and turned away, not deigning to reply. And then the memory of that talk at the ball had struck him like a blow. 

"Wait, Dorothy! You must wait!" he had cried, aware that his imperativewords clutched her like a detaining hand. Then, while his breath camefast, almost chokingly, he had said: "Tell me, Dorothy, is it becauseyou don't call me _a man_ that you won't have me?"

The angry challenge in his voice hardened her. 

"I don't know anything about how much of a man you are, HarryWakefield, " she had declared, with freezing indifference. "I only knowyou are not the man for me. "

That had been practically the end of it. They had got through the dayvery creditably he believed, and the next morning they had departed ontheir several ways. 

Wakefield had read law like mad for a week, and then he had started forColorado. He had a favorite cousin out there whose husband was making afortune in Lame Gulch stocks, and he thought that even prosaicfortune-hunting in a new world would be better than the gnawing chagrinthat monopolized things in the old. Better be active than passive, onany terms. By the time he was well on his westward way, the sting ofthat refusal had yielded somewhat, and he began to take courage again. Perhaps when he had made a fortune! "It takes a man to do that, " she hadsaid. Well, he had four times the money to start with that Dick Daytonhad had, and look, what chances there were!

Once fairly launched in the stirring, out-of-door Colorado life, hisspirits had so far recovered their tone that he could afford to bemagnanimous. Accordingly he wrote the following letter to Dorothy:

 "DEAR DOROTHY, "You were right; I wasn't half good enough for you. No fellow is, as far as that goes! Don't you let them fool you on that score! It makes me mad when I think about it. You always knew the worst of me, but you don't really know the first thing about any other man. I'm coming back next year to try again. Do give me the chance, Dorothy! Remember, I don't tell you you could make anything you like of me--that's the rubbish the rest will talk. I'm going to make something of myself first! And if I don't do it in a year, I am ready to work seven years, --or seventy, --or seventy-seven years; if you'll only have me in the end! That would have to be in Heaven, though, wouldn't it? Well, it would come to the same thing in the end! It would be Heaven for me, wherever it was!"

Wakefield had the habit of saying to Dorothy whatever came into hishead; and so he had written his letter without any thought of effect. But the answer he got was so carefully worded that he could make nothingof it. At the end of three non-committal pages she wrote:

 "I ought not to wish you good luck, for Papa says if you have it it will be your ruin. I did not suppose that circumstances could ruin anybody, --anybody that had any backbone, I mean. But I do wish you good luck all the same, and if you're the kind of person to be ruined by it, why, I'm sorry for you!"

There was something in that letter, non-committal as it was, that gaveWakefield the impression that a correspondence would be no furtheranceto his interests. He did not write again, and he only knew, from hissister Fanny, that Dorothy was a greater favorite than ever that season;a fact from which he could gather little encouragement. He had flunghimself like a piece of driftwood into the whirl of speculation; he hadlost more thousands than he cared to think about, the bulk of hispatrimony in fact, and his last chance was gone of making the fortunethat was to have been the winning of Dorothy. "It takes a man to dothat!" she had said. 

Well, that was the end of it! As far as he was concerned, Dorothy Rayhad ceased to exist; the past had ceased to exist, the pleasant past, with its deceitful mists and bewildering sunbeams. Things out here werecrude, but they were real! He got on his feet and turned about oncemore. Between Mt. Washington and the range was a fertile ranch; broadfields of vivid alfalfa, big barns, pastures dotted with cattle; a lineof light-green cottonwoods ran along the borders of the creek. What wasthat about the wilderness blossoming like the rose? He turned again andlooked toward the barren hillocks. Even they, dead and inhospitable asthey appeared at a little distance, afforded nourishment for cactus andpainter's-brush, prickly poppy and hardy vetches. Dorothy Ray might doas she pleased, --his fortune might go where it would! That need not bethe end of all things. Life, to be sure, might seem a little like a gameof chess after the loss of the Queen! Pretty tough work it was likely tobe to save the game, but none the less worth while for all that. Hewondered what his next move would be, --and meanwhile, beforerecommencing the game, why not seize the most obvious outlet for hisnewly roused energies, by tearing down the hill at a break-neck gallopand clearing the wire fence at a bound!

"Took you for a jack-rabbit!" said a gruff voice close at hand, as helanded on his two feet by the dusty roadside. 

"Not a bad thing to be, " Wakefield panted, falling in step with thespeaker, who was walking toward the town at a brisk pace. 

"Not unless the dogs are round, " the stranger demurred. 

"Dogs! A jack-rabbit would never know how game he was, if it wasn't forthe dogs!"

"Any on your track?" asked the man with a grin. "Looked like it when youcome walluping down the mounting!"

"A whole pack of them, " Wakefield answered. "Didn't you see anything ofthem?"

"Can't say I did. "

"You're not so smart as you look, then;" and they went jogging on likecomrades of a year's standing. 

The new acquaintance appeared to be a man of sixty or thereabouts. Acrowbar and shovel which he carried over his shoulder seemed a part ofhis rough laborer's costume. He had a shrewd, good sort of face, and aYankee twang to his speech. 

"You carry those things as easy as a walking-stick, " Wakefield observed, ready to reciprocate in point of compliments. "What do you use themfor?"

"Ben mendin' the bit o' _codderoy_ down yonder, " was the answer. 

"Is that your trade?"

"No, not partic'larly. I make a trade of most anything I kin work at. Happened to be out of a job last week, so I took up with this. "

"Got through with it?"

"Yes; stopped off to-day. Got done just in time. They start in on theroad next week, 'n they've took me on. "

"What road's that?"

"The new branch in. "

"Oh! In to Lame Gulch. I heard they were going to start in on that. "

"Yes; the 'Rocky Mounting' are doin' it. They say there'll be trainsrunnin' in from the Divide inside of six months. "

Wakefield looked sceptical; he had heard that sort of talk before. 

"Do you like railroad work?" he asked. 

"Not so well's this. I like my own job better, only 'taint so _stayin'_. Might 've had another month's work, on the road to the cañon over there;but that would ha' ben the end on 't. So I'm goin' to throw up that jobthis afternoon. "

"What's wanted on the cañon road?"

"Wal, it wants widenin', an' it wants bracin' up here 'n there, 'nthere's a power of big stuns to be weeded out. A reel purty job it'sgoin' to be, too, in there by the runnin' water, among the _fars_ 'n thebirds 'n the squirrels. "

"I suppose you could hardly have managed that all by yourself?"

"Oh, yes! It's an easy job. "

"And you think you could have done it with just your two hands and ashovel and a crowbar?"

"Wal, yes, --'n a pinch o' powder now and then, 'n somethin' to drill ahole with, --an' a little nat'ral gumption. "

Wakefield liked the sound of it all uncommonly well. For a man who hadcome to a rough place in his own road, --a jumping-off place he had oncethought it might prove to be, --would it not be rather a pleasant thing, to smooth off a road for the general public? It would be a stroke in thegame, at least, and that was his main concern just now. Such a good, downright, genuine sort of work too! He had an idea that if he couldonce get his grip on a crowbar, and feel a big rock come off its bottomat his instigation, he should have a stirring of self-respect. Afterall, of all that he had lost, that was perhaps the most important thingto get back. 

Just as he had arrived at this sensible conclusion his companion came toa halt. 

"Here's my shanty; where's yours?" he asked. 

"Haven't got any!"

"I'd ask you in if we wasn't packin' up to go. "

"Does your wife go with you?"

"Why, nat'rally!"

"Say, " Wakefield queried, as the man turned in at the gate. "How did yougo to work to get that job up in the cañon?"

"Went to 'Bijah Lang, the street-commissioner. "

"You haven't got any friend who would like you to pass the job over tohim?"

"No. "

"Think I could do it?"

"Wal, yes, --if you've got the gumption! Your arms and legs 'pear to beall right! Ever see any work of the kind?"

"Yes; I used to watch them on the road up Bear Mountain, at Lame Gulch. "

"Know how to drill a hole in a rock?"

"Learned that when I was a boy. "

"Know the difference between _joint_ powder and the black stuff?"

"Yes; though I never handled giant powder myself. "

"Wal, don't be too free with it, that's all. And, say!" he called, asWakefield in his turn made as if to go. "Look's like as though you'd gotsomethin' up to Lame Gulch. Wal, you hold on to it, that's all!"

"You believe in Lame Gulch, then?"

"Lame Gulch is all right. It's chockfull of stuff, now I tell ye! Onlyfolks thought they was goin' to fish it out with a rod 'n line. "

"Then you really think there 's something in it?"

"Somethin' in it? I tell ye, it's chockfull o' stuff! Only folks havegot it into their heads that the one thing in this world they kin gitwithout workin' for it, is _gold_! If that was so, what would it bewuth? Less than pig-iron! I tell ye, there ain't nothin' in this worldthat's to be got without workin' for it, 'n the more work it takes, themore it's wuth! 'N the reason gold's wuth more 'n most things, isbecause it takes more work 'n most things; more diggin' 'n morecalc'latin'. Why!" he went on, waxing more and more emphatic. "Efdiggin' gold wa' n't no harder 'n mendin' roads, 't wouldn't _pay_ anybetter, --now I tell ye!"

"Perhaps you're right, " Wakefield admitted, "but that's not what we'rebrought up to think. "

"That's what my boys was brought up to think, 'n they're actin'accordin'. "

"Have you got some boys up at Lame Gulch?"

"Yes, four on 'em. 'N I've got a claim up there too, 'n they're workin'it. "

"Why don't you go up and work your claim yourself?" asked Wakefield. 

A humorous twinkle came into the man's eyes. 

"Wal, now I tell ye!" and his voice dropped to a confidential level. "Railroadin' _pays better_, so far!"

"Do your boys get a living out of the mine?"

"Not yet, not yet. But they're skilled miners. 'N when they git hard up, a couple on 'em put in a month's work for some skalliwag 'company' orother, 'n so they keep agoin'. The three married ones ain't up there atall. "

"So you've got seven sons?"

"Yes; seven boys, all told. We lost a girl, " he added, with anindefinable change in his voice. "Her name was Loretty. "

With that, Loretty's father passed up the path and disappeared withinthe house. 

"Nice old chap, " Wakefield thought, as he walked on, past the littlehouses with the presumable mortgages on them. "Nice of him to go oncaring for Loretty after he had lost her. "

He wondered whether, after all, he had better make such a point offorgetting about Dorothy! Up there on the red hilltop, hobnobbing withthe yellow cactus, he had resolved never to think of her again; but downhere among human habitations, fresh from the good human intercourse ofthe last ten minutes, he did not feel so sure about it. He thought that, on the whole, it might be as well to decide that question later. Meanwhile, here was the street-commissioner's door, and here was adecision that must be come to on the spot. 

Harry Wakefield always looked back upon the day when he first pried abig rock off its base, as a turning-point in his career; a move that putthe game in his own hands. The sensation was different from what he hadanticipated. He had fancied that he was about to engage in asingle-handed struggle, but no sooner had his grip closed upon thecrowbar, no sooner had he felt the mass of rock yield to its pressure, than he found that he was not working single-handed. On the contrary, hehad the feeling of having got right down among the forces of nature andof finding them ranged on his side. It was gravitation that gave therock its weight, but, look there! how some other law, which he did notknow the name of, dwelt in the resisting strength of the iron, worked inthe action of his muscles. His legs trembled, as he braced himself tothe effort; the veins of his neck throbbed hard; but the muscles of hisarms and chest held firm as the crowbar they guided, and slowly, reluctantly, sullenly, the rock went over on its side. He dropped thecrowbar from his stiffening grasp and drew himself up, flinging hisshoulders back and panting deep and strong. 

It was between six and seven o'clock in the morning, a radiant Junemorning, which seemed alive with pleasant things. As he stood with hishead thrown back, taking a good draught of the delicious mountain air, abluebird shot, like a bit of the sky, in and out among the solemn pinesand delicate aspens. He looked down on the tangle of blossoming vinesand bushes that latticed the borders of the brook, which came dashingdown from the cañon, still rioting on its way. The water would soon haveanother cause for clamor, in the big stone that had so long cumbered theroad. He should presently have the fun of rolling it over the bank andseeing it settle with a splash in the bed of the stream where itbelonged by rights. After that there was a fallen tree to be tackled, acouple of rods farther on, and then he should take a rest with hisshovel and fill in some holes near by. 

[Illustration: "THE BROOK, WHICH CAME DASHING DOWN FROM THE CAÑON, STILLRIOTING ON ITS WAY. "]

He had found a deserted lean-to, half way up the cañon, where he hadarranged to camp while the work went on. As he thought of Chittenden andAllery Jones and the rest, cooped up there in the town, still anxiouslywatching the fluctuations of the stock-market, he was filled withcompassion for them, and he determined to have them out now and then andgive them a camp stew. 

Of course the exultation of that first hour's work did not last. Beforethe day was out, Wakefield had found out what he was "in for. " An achingback and blistered hands were providing him with sensations of a lessexhilarating order than those of the early morning. At one time, soonafter his "nooning" as he liked to call it, the sun blazed so fiercelythat he had ignominiously fled before it and taken refuge for an hour ormore among the trees. That was the episode which he least liked toremember. He did not quite see why mending a road in the sun should beso much more dangerous than playing polo at high noon, but, somehow, ithurt more; and he recollected that his late father, who was a physician, had once told him that pain was Nature's warning. Having, then, enteredinto a close alliance with Nature, he thought it well to take her hints. 

Before many days his apprenticeship was over and he was working like aborn day-laborer. After the first week he was well rid of aches andpains; the muscles of his back were strengthened, the palms of his handswere hardened, his skull, he thought to himself, must have thickened. Inall things, too, he was tuned to a lower key. But if the exhilaration ofthat first morning was gone, it had only given place to somethingbetter; namely, a solid sense of satisfaction. He knew it was all anepisode, this form of work at least; he knew that when his "job" wasdone he should go back into the world and take up the life he had oncemade a failure of; but he knew also that he should not fail again. Asense of power had come into him; he had made friends with work for itsown sake. He believed that his brain was as good as his muscles, that itwould respond as readily to the demands he should put upon it. And hehad learned to be strenuous with himself. 

Wakefield was in correspondence with a friend in San Francisco whowanted him to come out there and practise law. He decided, rathersuddenly, to do so, coming to his decision the day after he was toldthat Dorothy Ray was engaged to be married. 

It was Dick Dayton who brought him the news. As he listened, he feltsomething as he did that first day in the cañon when the sun got toostrong for him. He thought, after Dayton left him, that he should havegiven up the game then and there, if it had not been for some blastinghe was to do in the morning. The holes were all drilled, and it would bea day's job to clear away the pieces and straighten things out at thatpoint. He should hate to have another man go on with the job. They mightcut him out with Dorothy, --that was sure to come, sooner or later, --but, by the Great Horn Spoon! they should not get his job away from him!

It was not until he had turned in for the night that it occurred to himthat he had not asked whom Dorothy was engaged to. What did he care, anyway? he said to himself. He had gambled away his chances long ago. Yet, Good Heavens, how dear she was! As he lay on the ground, outside thelittle lean-to, staring up at the stars that glittered in the thin airwith what is called, at lower altitudes, a frosty brilliance, he seemedto see her before him more plainly than he had ever done in the old dayswhen they had stood face to face. He had been too self-absorbed, tooblinded and bewildered with the urgency of his own case, to see her asshe really was. He remembered now, --something that he had never thoughtabout before, --the little toss of her hair, up from her forehead, whichwas different from the way other girls wore their hair. It made a littlebillow there, that was like her free spirit. Yes, she had always had afree spirit. Perhaps it was the claim of ownership he had made, whichhad repelled her so strongly. As well set up a claim of ownership overthose stars up there!

He tried to hope that the other fellow was man enough to deserve her;but that was beyond his magnanimity. The only way to bear it, for thepresent at least, was to leave the "other fellow" out of the question. He was glad he did not know his name. And all night long, as he watchedthe stars, their slow, imperceptible progress marked only by theintervening tree-twigs, Dorothy's face was fairly visible to him, hervoice came to him distinct as an echo; her sweet, free nature unfoldeditself to his awakened consciousness. 

Since then he had worked as if his life had depended upon it, and now, after those ten days of fierce labor, his "job" was almost done. He hadworked his way well up into the cañon, quite to the end of the distancecontracted for. A few days more would complete the job. He thought, witha pang of regret, that his lines would never again fall in such gloriousplaces. He knew the cañon by heart; he had seen it in every phase of itssummer beauty, by day and by night, in sunshine and in storm, and nowthe autumn had come and the sensitive green of the aspens had turned toyellow. They gleamed along the brook-side; they showed like an outcropof gold on the wall of rock over there, and in among the blue-greenpines; their yellow leaves strewed the ground on which he stood. It waseight o'clock in the morning, and he was about to do his last blasting. There was nobody up the cañon, and nobody was likely to come from belowfor an hour yet. The big boulder was not to thrust itself into the roadany more; another minute, and all that protruding side of it would beblown off and there would be room for two teams to pass each other. Hark! Was not that a horse's hoofs down below? He was already in theact of "touching her off, " holding the lighted match in the hollow ofhis two hands. As he turned his head to listen, the fuse ignited with asharp _spit!_ scorching and blackening the palms of his hands, andcausing him to jump as violently as he used to do before his nerves weretrained to the business. Somewhat disgusted with his want of nerve, hepicked up his tools in a particularly leisurely manner, and depositedthem at a safe distance from the coming crash. Then, to make up for thisbit of bravado, he ran swiftly down the road, --"walluped" he said tohimself, thinking of Loretty's father, --and when he espied the horse, heshouted and waved his arms in warning. 

The horse stopped, and Wakefield slackened his pace. The moment he haddone so he recognized the rider. He was not conscious of any surprise atseeing Dorothy Ray riding, all by herself, up the cañon. He did notpause to question as to how she got there, to wonder what she wouldthink of him, turned day-laborer. He felt nothing but an absolutecontent and satisfaction in having her there before him; it seemed sonatural and so right that he did not see how it could have beenotherwise! He strode down the road to where she stood, and as shedropped the bridle and held out both hands to him, he flung his old hataway and clasped them in his powder-blackened palms. 

"O Harry!" she cried with a joyful ring in her voice; "I never was soglad to see anybody in my life!"

He did not say one word, but as he stood there, bareheaded, there was alook in his face that gave her pause. Had she been too forward? Was heso changed? She drew her hands away, and taking up the bridle, lookeduncertainly from side to side. 

"Aren't we friends any more, Harry? Aren't you glad to see me?" sheasked. Her voice was unsteady like her look. He had never seen her likethis. 

"Glad to see you, Dorothy?" he cried. "You seem like an angel straightfrom Heaven, only a hundred thousand million times better!"

A sudden explosion boomed out, putting a period to this emphaticdeclaration. Wakefield seized the rein of the startled horse, thatsprang shivering to one side; but Dorothy only said, quite composedly:"I suppose you were blasting up there. Will there be another?"

"No; but how did you know it was I?"

"Why, I knew all about it, of course. Fanny told me, and Mrs. DickDayton wrote home, and, --well, I knew about it a great deal better thananybody else!"

"And you knew I was up here?"

"Of course I did! Why, else, should I have come up at daybreak?"

"But, Dorothy, " Wakefield persisted, determined to make a clean breastof it at the outset. "Did you know I had made a fizzle of everything outhere?"

"I knew you had lost your money, " she replied, with an air of misprizingsuch sordid considerations. "And Fanny told me you were going toCalifornia, and, --I just thought I would come out with the Dennimans!"she added irrelevantly. 

He was walking beside her horse up the broad clean road he had oncetaken such pride in;--ages ago he thought it must have been. On eitherhand, the solemn cliffs, familiars of the past three months, stooddecked with gleaming bits of color; the brook went careering in theirshadow, calling and crooning its little tale. What was that over yonderunder the big pine-tree? Only a pair of bright eyes, that twinkledcuriously, then vanished in a whisking bit of fur! On a sudden he hadbecome estranged and disassociated from these intimate surroundings, these sights and sounds which had so long been his companions. What hadthey to do with Dorothy!

She was telling him of her journey out and of the friends she wastravelling with. She would have given him the home news, but, "Don'ttalk about anybody but yourself, Dorothy, " he said. "That's all that Icare about!"

At last they stood fronting the big boulder, whose side had been blastedoff. Dorothy looked at the fragments of stone strewing the road, and atthe massive granite surface, now withdrawn among the pine-trees. Onehuge branch, broken by a flying rock, hung down across its face. Thewhole scene told of the play of tremendous forces, and Wakefield's wasthe hand that had controlled and directed them. Obedient to long habit, he stooped, and lifting a good-sized fragment, sent it crashing down thebank into the brook. 

"How strong you are, Harry!" she said. 

There was something in the way she said it, that made him feel that hemust break the spell, then and there, or he should be playing themischief with his own peace of mind. Yet he was conscious of a strangeabsence of conviction, as he asked abruptly: "Dorothy, whom are yougoing to marry?"

So he had heard that foolish gossip, and that was why there was thatlook in his face!

She was too generous to think of herself, too sure, indeed, of him andof herself, to weigh her words. With the little, half-defiant toss ofthe head he knew so well, yet gathering up the reins as if for instantflight, she said:

"I should think that was for you to say, Harry!"

XII. 

THE BLIZZARD PICNIC. 

"Ah, there, Mr. Burns! Glad to see you! This is what we call realColorado weather!"

The speaker, a mercurial youth of two and twenty, was one of a group ofyoung people assembled, some on horseback, some in yellow buckboards, infront of a stately Springtown mansion. 

"Nothing conceited about us!" a girlish voice retorted. "I am sure youunderstand by this time, Mr. Burns, that Colorado is a synonym forperfection. "

The new-comer laughed appreciatively as he drew rein close beside thegirl, who sat her part-thoroughbred with the ease and grace of lifelonghabit. 

"I had learned my lesson pretty well before I came out, thanks to you, "the young man answered, in a tone that was a trifle over-significant. 

The girl flushed, whether from pleasure or annoyance, it was impossiblefor the looker-on to decide. The looker-on--and his name, as usual, waslegion, --had found no lack of occupation since the arrival on the field, some two weeks previous, of the Rev. Stephen Burns. Although the youngminister was staying at the hotel, like any other chance tourist, therecould be no question as to the object of his visit, for he passed mostof his waking hours, either under Dr. Lovejoy's roof, or in the societyof the doctor's daughter. The fact that Amy Lovejoy tolerated suchassiduous attendance boded ill for Springtown, yet so cheerful is theatmosphere of the sunny-hearted little community, that foregoneconclusions of an unwelcome character carry but scant conviction to itsmind. Springtown could not spare Amy Lovejoy, therefore Springtown wouldnot be called upon to do so. 

By this time the group was twenty strong, a truly gala assemblage, whichmight have blocked the way on a less generous thoroughfare. On the broadexpanse of Western Avenue, however, no picnic party, however numerous, was likely to interfere with traffic. 

They were all young people, the chaperone of the occasion, a bride oftwenty, looking, as she was, one of the very youngest. The brilliantFebruary day gleamed like a jewel upon the proud and grateful earth. Thesky was one glorious arch of tingling blue, beneath which the snowypeaks shone with a joyful glitter. The air had the keen, dry sparklethat is sometimes compared to champagne, greatly to the advantage ofthat pleasant beverage. In short, it was a real Colorado day, and theseyoung people were off on a real Colorado picnic. How exceptionallycharacteristic the occasion might prove to be, no one suspected, simplybecause no one payed sufficient heed to a shred of gray vapor thathovered on the brow of the Peak. Amy Lovejoy, to be sure, remarked thatthere would be wind before night, and another old resident driving by, waved his hat toward the Peak, and cried, "Look out for hurricanes!" Butno one was the wiser for that. 

The last packages of good things, the last overcoat and extra wrap, werestowed away under the seats of the yellow buckboards; the mercurialyouth, Jack Hersey by name, had cried, for the last time, "Are weready, --say, _are_ we ready?" Elliot Chittenden's restive bronco, knownas "my nag, " had cut its last impatient caper; and off they started, agay holiday throng, passing down the Avenue to the tune of jinglingharness and chattering voices and ringing hoofs. From a south porch onthe one hand, and a swinging gate on the other, friends called a cheerygreeting; elderly people jogging past in slow buggies, met thepleasure-seekers with a benignant smile; foot-passengers turned andwaved their wide sombreros, and over yonder the Peak beamed upon them, with never a hint of warning; for the gray vapor hovering there was fartoo slight a film to cast a shadow upon that broad and radiant front. 

"It makes one think of the new Jerusalem, and the walls of Walhalla, andevery sort of brilliant vision, " Stephen Burns remarked, as his horseand Amy's cantered side by side, a little apart from the others. 

"Yes, " said Amy, looking absently before her; "I suppose it does. " Andshe wondered, as she had done more than once in the past two weeks, whyshe could not enter more responsively into the spirit of hisconversation. She knew, and she would once have considered it a fact ofthe first importance, that to Stephen Burns the New Jerusalem was notmore sacred than the abode of the ancient gods, --or, to be moreaccurate, Walhalla was not less beautiful and real than the sacred cityof the Hebrews. Each had its own significance and value in hisestimation, as a dream, an aspiration of the human mind. 

It was what seemed to Amy Lovejoy the originality and daring of theyoung minister's views of things high and low, which had at firstfascinated the girl. She had never before met with just that type ofthinker, --indeed she had never before associated on equal terms with anythinker of any type whatever!--and it was perhaps no wonder that she hadbeen inclined to identify the priest with his gospel, that she had beenready to accept both with equal trust. In fact, nothing but her father'scautious reluctance had deterred her from pledging herself, four monthsago, to this grave-eyed cavalier, riding now so confidently by her side. 

She was her father's only child, and since the death of her mother, someten years previous to this, she had been called upon to fill theimportant position of "apple of the eye" to a secretly adoring, ifsomewhat sarcastic parent. 

"Your parson may be all very well, " the doctor had written, "but if heis worth having he will keep! He must have the advantage of extremeyouth, to be taken with a callow chick like yourself, but that shallnot injure him in my eyes. Tell him to wait a while, and then come andshow himself. Two heads are better than one in most of the exigencies oflife, and when he comes, you and I can make up our minds about him atour leisure. "

The girl's mind had reverted, _à propos_ of nothing, to that concludingsentence of her father's letter, which she had read at the time with anindulgent but incredulous smile. Presently she became aware that hercompanion was speaking again. 

"It is all one, " he was saying. "What we see and what we imagine; whatwe aspire to, and what has been the aspiration of other men in otherages. And how _good_ it all is!"

This he added with a certain turn and gesture which made the wordsintensely personal. Why did they repel her so strongly, she wondered, and wondering, she failed to answer. Involuntarily she had slackened herhorse's pace, and fallen in line with the others, and when Jack Herseyrode up at that moment, she gave him a look of welcome which had theeffect of making him more mercurial than ever for the rest of the day. 

"I say, Amy, " he cried; "isn't this a dandy day?" and Amy felt herselfon good, homely, familiar ground, and she answered him with a heartgrown suddenly light as his own. 

Stephen Burns, meanwhile, rode on beside her, with no very distinctmisgiving in his mind. He had, to be sure, been somewhat daunted once ortwice before, by a curious, intermittent asperity in her, which he couldnot quite account for. Yet why should he expect to account for everychanging mood in this uniquely charming being? Had he not perceived fromthe beginning that she was not fashioned quite after the usual pattern?

They had met, the previous autumn, in the quaint old New England townwhere his people lived. She had come like a bit of the young West intothe staid, old-fashioned setting of the place, and he had rejoiced inevery trait that distinguished her from the conventional young lady ofhis acquaintance. To-day, as they rode side by side toward thebroad-bosomed mountain to the southward, he told himself once more thather nature was like this Colorado atmosphere, in its absolute clearnessand crispness. Such an air, --bracing, stinging, as it sometimeswas, --could never turn really harsh and easterly; neither, perhaps, could it ever take on the soft languor of the summer sea. And AmyLovejoy's nature would always have the finer, more individual quality ofthe high, pure altitude in which she had been reared. Possibly StephenBurns had yet something to learn about that agreeable climate with whichhe was so ready to compare his love. The weather had been perfect sincehe came to Colorado. How could he suspect the meaning of a tiny wisp ofvapor too slight to cast a visible shadow?

And Amy chatted gaily on with Jack Hersey, as they cantered southward, while Stephen Burns, riding beside them, told himself with needlessreiteration, that he was well content. One reason for content hecertainly had at that moment, for he was a good horseman, as anaccomplished gentleman is bound to be, and he was never quite insensibleto the exhilaration of that delicious, rhythmic motion. 

They had passed through a gate which signified that the rolling acres ofprairie on either hand, the winding road that lost itself in thedistance, the pine-clad slope to the right, were all but a part of agreat ranch. Herds of cattle were doubtless pastured within thatenclosure, though nowhere visible to the holiday party riding anddriving over their domain. Hundreds of prairie-dog holes dotted thevast field on either hand, and here and there one of the odd littlefraternity scampered like a ball of gray cotton across the field, or saterect beside his hole, barking shrilly, before vanishing, with a whiskof the tail, from sight. Stephen took so kindly to the little show, andmade such commonplace exclamations of pleasure, that Amy felt a suddenrelieved compunction and smiled upon him very graciously. 

"They are not a bit like what I expected, " he said; "but they are suchself-important, conceited little chaps that you can't help having afellow-feeling with them!"

"Hullo! There's a give-away!" Jack Hersey shouted; and he turned andrepeated the remark for the benefit of a buckboard in the rear. Amythought Jack very stupid and silly, and in her own heart, she promptlyranged herself on the side of her young minister. There was nothingsubtle or elusive about her changes of mood, and Stephen profited byeach relenting. For a few blissful moments, accordingly, he now baskedin the full consciousness of her favor. 

They continued for half an hour on the ranch road, rising and dippingfrom point to point, yet mounting always higher above the great plainbelow. There the prairie stretched away, a hundred miles to the East andSouth, with never a lake nor a forest to catch the light, with not acloud in the sky to cast a shadow. Yet over the broad, undulatingexpanse were lines and patches of varying color, changing and waveringfrom moment to moment, like mystic currents and eddies upon a heaving, tide-swept sea. Amy watched her companion furtively, ready to takeumbrage at any lack of proper appreciation on his part; for this waswhat she liked best in all Colorado, this vast, mysterious prairie sea. Yet when she saw by Stephen's face that the spell had touched him too, when she noted the rapt gaze he sent forth, as he left his horse tochoose his own way, she felt annoyed, unreasoningly, perversely annoyed. Somehow his look was too rapt, he was taking it too solemnly, he was toomuch in earnest! She had a longing to touch up her horse and gallop offto some spot where she might be unmolested, where she might think herown thoughts and receive her own impressions without seeing themaccentuated, exaggerated in another person. There had never been any onebefore who seemed to feel just as she did about that view, and somehowshe resented this intrusion upon what seemed like her own preserve. 

Of course there was but one explanation of all this high-strungsensitiveness in a healthy, natural girl like Amy Lovejoy. She had madea mistake, and she was finding it out. In those autumn days in thelittle New England town, she had fallen captive to an idea, a theory oflife, a certain poetical incentive and aspiration; for months she hadfed her imagination upon this new experience, and suddenly Stephen Burnshad come, and by his personal presence asserted a personal claim. Shehad been unconsciously ignoring the personal element in their relation, which had, in the months of separation, become very indefinite andunreal to her. She had told her father that Stephen's eyes were brown, and she found that they were blue; she had described him as being tall, and he had turned out to be rather below the medium height; she hadforgotten what his voice was like, and it seemed oppressively rich andfull. 

"Better look out for your horse, Mr. Burns!" she said curtly. "He almosttook a header a minute ago. "

"Did he?" said Stephen. "I did not notice. This is the view you told meabout, is it not?"

"Very likely, " she returned, with affected indifference. "We Coloradopeople always do a good deal of bragging when we are in the East. Wewear all our little descriptions and enthusiasms threadbare. "

"There was nothing threadbare about your account, " Stephen protested. "It was almost as vivid as the sight itself. "

"We take things more naturally when we get back to them. Come, Jack, let's go faster!"

There was a level stretch of road before them, and the two young peoplewere off with a rush. Stephen knew that the livery horse he rode couldnever keep up with them, even had his pride allowed him to followuninvited. He had a dazed, hurt feeling, which was not more than halfdispelled when, a few minutes later he came up with the truants, restingtheir horses at the top of a sudden dip in the road. 

"Who got there first?" called a voice from one of the buckboards. 

"Amy, of course. You don't suppose Cigarette would pass a lady!"

"Jacky wouldn't 'cause he couldn't!" Amy quoted. "Poor Cigarette, " sheadded, descending to prose again, and tapping Cigarette's nose with thebutt of her riding-crop. "How he did heave and pant when he caught upwith us! And Sunbeam never turned a hair!"

"What made you call him Sunbeam?" Stephen asked, with an effort toappear undisturbed, as he watched her stroking the glossy black neck. 

"Because he wasn't yellow, " she answered shortly; upon which somebodylaughed. 

They picknicked in a sunny opening among the scrub-oaks, on the edge ofa hollow through which a mountain brook had made its way. There was snowin the hollow, and a thin coating of ice on the brook. A few rods away, the horses, relieved of their bridles, were enjoying their dinners, switching their sides with their tails from time to time, as if the warmsun had wakened recollections of summer flies. Amy sat on the outskirtsof the company, where Sunbeam could eat from her hand; a privilege hewas accustomed to on such occasions. One of the men had brought acamera, and he took a snap-shot at the entire company, just as they hadgrouped themselves on the sunny slope. Amy and Sunbeam were conspicuousin the group, but when, some days later, the plate was developed, it wasfound that Mr. Stephen Burns did not appear in the photograph. Amy wasthe only one not surprised at the omission. He had been sitting besideher, and she was aware that he leaned on his elbow and got out of sight, just as the snap-shot was taken. She wondered at the time why he did so, but she found that she did not greatly care to know the reason. 

A few minutes later, just as the girls of the party were busy dippingthe cups and spoons into the edge of the snow, --the sun so hot on theirshoulders that they quite longed to get into the shade, ElliotChittenden came hurrying back from a short excursion out to the edge ofthe slope, to tell them of a wicked-looking cloud in the north. The browof the hill had shut off the view in that direction, the faithfulbarometer, the Peak, having long since been lost sight of. 

There was a sudden hurry and commotion, for all knew the menace of astorm from the north, and that its coming is often as swift as it issharp. No one was better aware of the situation than Amy. 

"Put your overcoat on to begin with, " she said to Burns; "and get yourhorse. I'll see to Sunbeam. " The bridle was already fast on the prettyblack head as she spoke, but it was some time before Burns came up. Hehad mislaid his bridle, and when he found it he fumbled unaccountably. His fingers apparently shared the agitation of his mind; an agitationwhich was something new in his experience, and which made him feelsingularly at odds with everything, even with impersonal straps andbuckles! When at last he came, she put her foot in his hand and went uplike a bird to a perch. 

"Everybody has got ahead of us, " she said, as they put their horses intoa canter. 

The sun was still hot upon them, but down below, the plains wereobscured as with a fog. 

"What is that?" he asked. 

"A dust-storm. Can you make your horse go faster?"

"Not and keep the wind in him. "

"Never mind, we shall do very well. "

They had come about the brow of the mountain now, and could see thegreat black cloud to the north. It looked pretty ugly, even to StephenBurns's unaccustomed eyes. 

"What do you expect?" he asked, as they walked their horses down a sharpdescent. 

"It may be only wind, but there is likely to be snow at this season. Ifwe can only get out of the ranch we're all right; the prairie-dog holesmake it bad when you can't see. "

"Can't see?" he repeated. 

"Yes, " she answered impatiently. "Of course you can't see _in ablizzard_!"

A moment later a blinding cloud of sand struck them with such force thatboth the horses slewed sharp about and stood an instant, trembling withthe shock. As they turned to the north again, a few flakes of snow cameflying almost horizontally in their faces and then--the storm came!

Horses and riders bent their heads to the blast, and on they went. Ithad suddenly grown bitterly cold. 

"I wish you would take my coat, " said Stephen, fumbling at the buttonsas he had fumbled at the bridle. His teeth were chattering as he spoke. 

"Nonsense!" Amy answered sharply. "You'll feel this ten times as much asI. "

The snow was collecting in Stephen's beard, freezing as it fell, andmaking fantastic shapes there; the top of Amy's hat was a white cone, stiff and sharp as if it were carved in stone. 

They could not see a rod before them, but they found it easier tobreathe now. 

"Isn't it splendid, the way one rouses to it!" Amy exclaimed. "I'mgetting all heated up from the effort of breathing!"

There was no answer. 

"Don't you like it?" she asked, taking a look at his set face. 

"Like it? With you out in it!"

That was all he said, but Amy felt her cheeks tingle under the dash ofsnow that clung to them. The answer came like a rude check to theexultant thrill which had prompted her words. 

"He doesn't understand in the least!" she thought, impatiently, and itwas all she could do to refrain from spurring on her horse and leavinghim in the lurch as she had done once before, that day. He wasfaint-hearted, pusillanimous! What if it were only for her sake that hefeared? All the worse for him! She did not want his solicitude; it wasan offence to her!

The wind whistled past them, and the snow beat in their faces; theshapes in his beard grew more and more fantastic, the white cone on herhat grew taller, and then broke and tumbled into her lap; the horsesbent their heads, all caked with snow, and cantered pluckily on. 

They had passed the gate of the ranch, leaving it open behind them, andnow there were but a couple of miles between them and the town. Thesnow was so blinding that they did not see a group of buckboards andsaddle-horses under a shed close at hand, nor guess that some of theparty had found shelter in a house near by. They rode swiftly on, gaining in speed as they approached the town. The horses were very closetogether, straining, side by side, toward the goal. Amy's right hand layupon her knee, the stiff fingers closed about the riding-crop. If shehad thought about it at all, she would have said that her hand wasabsolutely numb. Suddenly, with a shock, she felt another hand closeupon it, while the words, "_my darling!_" vibrated upon her ear; thevoice was so close that it seemed to touch her cheek. She started as ifshe had been stung. 

"Oh, my riding-crop!" she cried, letting the handle slip from her grasp. 

"I beg your pardon, " Stephen gasped, in a low, pained tone. "If you willwait an instant, I will get it for you!"

He turned his horse about, for they had passed the spot by severallengths. 

Sunbeam stood for a moment, obedient to his rider's hand, while Amywatched the storm close in about her departing cavalier. As he vanishedfrom view, a sudden, overpowering impulse of flight seized her. Withoutdaring to think of what she was doing, she bent down and whispered"_go!_" in the low sharp tone that Sunbeam knew. He was off like a shot. 

"I don't care, I don't care, " the girl said to herself, over and overagain, as they bounded forward in the teeth of the storm. "Better nowthan later!"

She wondered whether Stephen would kill his horse endeavoring toovertake her; she wondered whether he would ever overtake her again!Somehow it seemed to her as if the storm had caught her up bodily andwere bearing her away from a very perplexing world. After all, what anamenable, unexacting sort of thing a blizzard was! How very easy to dealwith! You had only to duck your head, and screw up your eyes, and cleaveyour way through it, and on it went, quite unconcerned with your moodsand tenses! If Stephen Burns were only more like that, she thought toherself! But, alas! poor Stephen, with all his strong claims toaffection and esteem, could not assert the remotest kinship with thewhistling winds and blinding snow which were proving such formidablerivals!

A narrow lane appeared at her right. Almost before she was aware that itwas there, she had swung Sunbeam about; in another moment they werestanding, with two other saddle-horses, in a little grove of trees, further protected by a small house close at hand. It seemed almost warmin that sheltered nook. Amy recognized the horses and knew that Harry deLuce and one of the girls must have taken refuge within. 

The lane was a short one, and she and Sunbeam stood, trembling withexcitement, until they saw the shadow of a horse and rider speedingalong the road toward the town. Then Amy drew a long breath of relief. "It was all nothing but a shadow, " she said to herself, "and I went andthought it was real!"

She slid stiffly down from the saddle and hobbled into the house, allthe exultation gone from her bounding veins. It made her a bit dizzy tothink of the rush of tumultuous emotions which had outvied the storm ofthe elements but now. By the time the friendly hostess had establishedher before the kitchen stove and taken away her dripping hat and coat, she felt too limp and spent to answer the eager questions that wereasked. 

"Do something for Sunbeam, " she murmured weakly to Harry de Luce, inanswer to his ready offers of help. 

"They're going to send out a 'bus with four horses to pick up theremnants, " de Luce assured her. "If you girls will go in the 'bus I willlead Sunbeam and Paddy home. " And somehow it seemed so pleasant to betaken care of, just in a group with another girl and two horses, thatAmy, with a faint, assenting smile, submitted to be classed with the"remnants. "

She felt as if she were half asleep when, an hour or more later, she satin the corner of the great omnibus, that went lurching along through thesnow, like a mudscow gone astray among ocean waves. She had an idea thateverybody was talking at once, but that was just as well, since not asyllable was audible above the creaking and rattling of the big ark. 

Arrived at home she found the riding-crop, but no Stephen. He had calledan hour ago, to ask if she had arrived safely, but he had said nothingabout coming again. 

"If he has an atom of spirit he will never come near me again, " Amythought to herself. And then; "Oh, that dear blizzard!" she exclaimedunder her breath. 

Sunbeam, she learned, had arrived before her. Thomas Jefferson, theblack stable-man, reported him as partaking of a sumptuous supper withunimpaired relish. The thought of her favorite, crunching his feed inthe stall close at hand, gave her a sense of companionship as she ateher own solitary meal. Her father had been called in consultation to aneighboring town and would not return until the following day. 

After supper Amy curled herself up in an easy-chair under thedrop-light, and opened a new novel which she had been longing to read, ever since Stephen Burns's arrival. She thought with strong disapprovalof the manner in which he had been taking possession of her time for twoweeks past. She looked at the clock; it was half-past-eight. 

"Well! that's over with!" she thought, with a half guilty pang ofconviction. 

Somehow the novel was not as absorbing as she had anticipated. She letit drop on her lap, and sat for awhile listening to the storm outside, as she reviewed this strange, unnatural episode of half-betrothal whichhad turned out so queerly. 

A sharp ring at the telephone in the adjoining room broke in upon herrevery. She hastened to answer it. It was an inquiry from thelivery-stable for Mr. Stephen Burns. He had not brought the horse back, nor had he returned to his hotel. Did Miss Lovejoy perhaps know of hiswhereabouts? Did she think they had better send out a search-party?

Miss Lovejoy knew nothing of his whereabouts, and she was strongly ofthe opinion that he had better be looked up. As she still stoodlistening at the telephone, her heart knocking her ribs in a fiercefright, she heard a voice in the distant stable, not intended for herears, say: "Not much use to search! If he ain't under cover he ain'talive. " Upon which the heart ceased, for several seconds, its knockingat the ribs, and Amy Lovejoy knew how novel-heroines feel, when they aredescribed as growing gray about the lips. 

She could not seem to make the telephone tube fit in its ring, and aftertrying to do so once or twice, she left it hanging by the cord, and wentand opened the front door and stood on the veranda. It did not seem toher especially cold, but over there, in the light that streamed from theparlor window, the snow lay drifted into a singular shape, that lookedas if it might cover a human form. She shuddered sharply and went intothe house again. From time to time she telephoned to the stable. Theyhad sent a close carriage out with a doctor and two other passengers, and Elliot Chittenden had gone in an open buckboard with a driver. Byand by the buckboard had come back and another party had gone out in it. Then the carriage had returned and gone forth again with fresh horsesand a fresh driver. 

She played a good deal with the riding-crop during the evening, and nowand then she went outside the door and took a look at the weird, shroud-like shape, there in the light of the window. Once she stepped upto it and pushed the riding-crop in, to its full length, just to makesure that there was nothing under the snow. After that she took theriding-crop in and dried it carefully on a towel. 

Before she knew it the evening was far gone, and all but one carriagehad returned. 

"Guess Jim's turned in at some ranch, " came the word from thelivery-stable. "He'll be ready to start out again as soon as it'slight. "

If the evening had not seemed so miraculously short, Amy could not haveforgiven herself for having been so slow in arriving at her own plan ofaction. As it was, the clock had struck twelve, before she foundherself, clothed in two or three knit and wadded jackets under a looseold seal-skin sack, crossing the yard to the stable door. The maids hadlong since gone to bed, and Thomas Jefferson was a mile away, under hisown modest roof. 

Presently, with a clatter of hoofs, Sunbeam came forth from the stabledoor, bearing on his back, a funny, round, dumpy figure, very unlike inits outlines to the slender form which usually graced that seat. Thegallant steed was still further encumbered by a fur-lined great coat ofthe doctor's, strapped on behind, its pockets well stocked with brandyflask and biscuits. 

The storm had much abated, and there was already a break in the cloudsover yonder. The air was intensely cold, but the wind had quite dieddown. Sunbeam took the road at a good pace, for he had a valiant spiritand would have scorned to remember the day's fatigues. His rider sat, afunny little ball of fur, looking neither to the right nor to the left. Stephen was nowhere on the open road; that was sure, for he was far toogood a horseman to come to grief out there. There was but one place tolook for him, and that was among the prairie-dog holes. She had told himof the danger there was among them, and he would have hastened there themoment he believed that she was lost. 

Amy did not do very much thinking as she rode along; she did not analyzethe feeling that drove her forth to the rescue. She only knew that sheand she alone was responsible for any harm that might have come to onewhose only fault was that he had taken her at her word; and that shewould cheerfully break her own neck and Sunbeam's, --even Sunbeam's! forthe sake of rescuing him. 

The storm had ceased entirely now, and just as she reached the ranchgate, which had swung half to on its hinges and was stuck there in thesnow, the moon came out and revealed the wide white expanse, unbroken byany sign of the road. She felt sure that the search-parties would havefollowed the road as closely as possible and that they would have triednot to stray off into the field. But that was just where Stephen Burns, mindful of the perils she had described to him, would naturally haveturned. She blew the whistle in the end of her riding-crop, once, twice, three times. The sound died away in the wide echoless spaces. Thencautiously, slowly, she made Sunbeam feel his way across the snow. Themoon was still riding among heavy clouds, but now and then it shoneforth and flooded with light the broad white field, casting a sharp-cut, distorted shadow of horse and rider upon the snow. 

[Illustration: "THE RANCH GATE, WHICH HAD SWUNG HALF TO ON ITSHINGES. "]

Once or twice she stopped, and blew the whistle and hallooed, and eachtime the weird silence closed in again like an impenetrable veil. Sometimes she became impatient of her slow progress, but she knew toowell the dangers of a misstep to risk the chance of success by any lackof caution. Even in her anxiety and distress of mind, she marked theintelligence with which Sunbeam picked his way, testing the firmness ofeach spot on which he trod, as if he had known the danger. 

Presently they began the ascent of a long narrow ridge beyond which sheknew there were no holes. As they paused for a moment on the crest, looking down into the moonlit hollow, she raised the riding-crop to herlips, and blew a long, shrill whistle; and promptly as an echo a voicereturned the signal. Following the direction of the sound, her eyesdiscerned a dark shadow in the hollow forty rods away. She put Sunbeaminto a canter, and as she approached the shadow, the outline defineditself, and she saw that it was a ruinous shed or hut. 

"Hulloo!" came the voice again, and this time it was unmistakeablyStephen's. 

A hundred yards from the shed, Sunbeam shied violently. Looking to oneside, she beheld in the shadow of a mass of scrub-oaks the body of ahorse lying stark and still. Close beside the head was a dark spot inthe snow. 

A moment later she had dismounted and was standing within the ricketyhut, looking down upon another shadowy form that moved and spoke. 

"Are you hurt?" she asked. 

"Not much. I believe I have sprained my ankle. But the poor nag is donefor, " he added sorrowfully. 

"Which foot have you hurt?"

"The right one. "

"That's good. Then you can ride sidesaddle. Are you sure that is all?"

He was already consuming brandy and biscuit at a rate to dissipate allimmediate anxiety. 

"Yes; and I declare it's worth it!" he cried with enthusiasm; astatement which, if slightly ambiguous, conveyed a cheerful impression. 

"Did the fall kill the horse?" Amy asked, with a little quiver in hervoice, of pity for the poor beast. 

"No; I thought it best to cut an artery for him. Poor boy! He flounderedterribly before he went down. "

"What threw him?"

"Something in the way of a branch or a piece of timber. Lucky ithappened where it did, " he added. "I couldn't have gone far looking forshelter. "

"Poor old nag!" said Amy. Then, perceiving that she had not beenaltogether polite: "Aren't you nearly frozen?" she asked. 

"No, it's very snug in here. Some other tramp must have been here beforeme, and got these leaves together. There's lots of warmth in them. "

By this time Stephen had crawled out from among the oak-leaves and, having got himself into the doctor's fur-lined coat, stood on one foot, leaning heavily against the door-frame. 

"A splendid night, isn't it?" he remarked in a conversational tone. 

Amy, who was just leading Sunbeam up to the doorway, glanced at theyoung man, standing there in the bright moonlight, --at his sensitive, intelligent face, his finely-modelled head and brow, --and somehow shefelt reinstated with herself. She had been fatally wrong in makingchoice so lightly, but at least the choice was, in itself, nothing to beashamed of! As she helped Stephen in his painful transit to the saddle, she wondered if she were really a heartless person to take comfort insuch a thought. But, in truth, since she had come to question thegenuineness of her own part in their relation, she had lost faith inhis share as well. There must have been something wrong about it fromthe beginning, and certainly, she reasoned, if she had lost interest inso admirable a being as he, it was not to be expected that he would bemore constant to a trifling sort of person like herself. There was onlya little awkwardness to be got over at first, but sooner or later hewould bless her for his escape. 

Stephen, meanwhile, was submitting to all her arrangements with neitherprotest nor suggestion. She had undertaken to rescue him, and she mustdo it in her own way. If he hated to see her ploughing through the snowby the side of the horse, he made no sign. If he would rather have beenleft to his fate than to have subjected her to exposure and fatigue, hewas too wise to say so. Her wilfulness had been so thoroughlydemonstrated in the course of that day that he merely observed her withan appreciation half amused, half admiring. 

"There is a house just beyond the gate where we can go, " she said; andthen she did not speak again for many minutes. 

As for her companion, he seemed inclined at first to be as taciturn asshe. Whether or not he was suffering agony from his foot, she had nomeans of knowing, nor could she guess how he interpreted her own action. At last he broke the silence. 

"Of course you meant to give me the slip, " he said. "I half knew it allthe time. I suppose that was the very reason why I persisted in actingas if I thought you had ridden back for me. One clings all the harder toone's illusions when, --well, when it's all up with them. "

Amy could not seem to think of any suitable remark to make in reply. 

They had reached the ranch road now. She knew the general lay of theland well enough to recognize it, and she could trust Sunbeam to keepit. A dense black cloud, the rearguard of the storm, had covered themoon, but there were stars enough to light the way somewhat. 

"Would you mind telling me why you risked your life for me?" Stephenasked abruptly. 

Some seconds went by before she answered. Then: "I think there wasreason enough in my being to blame for it all, " she said; "I behavedoutrageously. "

"And the other reason? There was another reason, I take it. "

His voice was not eager, not lover-like; there was more curiosity thananything else in the tone. Again the moon shone out, and lighted up herface distinctly, as she answered him, looking straight before her alongthe snowy road. 

"I think, " she said, speaking with a slow consideration of her words; "Ithink it was because I could not bear to have you--go out of the world, believing--what was not true! It seemed like a deceit going over intoeternity!"

Would he say something very dreadful in reply, she wondered; somethingthat would haunt her for the rest of her days?

She was still bracing herself for the worst, --for he had not yet brokenthe silence, --when they came to the gate, fixed there, half closed. There was just room for Sunbeam to pass out, and Amy fell behind for amoment. Stephen drew rein and waited for her, while she vainly tried toclose the gate. 

"Don't mind that, " he said. "It will close of itself when the snowmelts. "

She came obediently and walked beside him. They had turned aside fromthe direction of Springtown, toward a little house a few rods away. Theywere almost there when Stephen spoke again. 

"You must be sorry about it all, " he said, "though you very wisely leavethat to be understood. You have made a mistake and you think you havecaused another person great and lasting unhappiness. I can't tellto-night whether that is so or not, but there is one thing that I thinkyou have a right to know. "

"And that is?" She felt that she must fill in the pause, for heevidently found it difficult to go on. 

"I think I know you well enough, " he said; "to be sure of your feelingabout it, though it is different from what some people would have underthe circumstances. But somehow I am sure that you will be glad to know, that when I thought I was going to perish in the storm, --after I wasthrown, and before I had seen that there was shelter near by, --it was_not you_ my thoughts were running on. "

Again he paused while she lifted the latch of the little gate. Then, asSunbeam passed through, and Amy walked by his side up the snowy path, Stephen said:

"I think it must have been a good many minutes that I lay there, thinking that the end was coming, and the only person in the world thatI seemed to care about was--_my mother_!"

At the word, the bond that had irked her was gently loosed, and he, forhis part, could only wonder that he felt no pain. The great coldmoonlit calm of the night seemed to enter into their hearts, sweptclean by the storm. They looked into one another's faces in the solemnwhite light, with a fine new unconcern. Where were all theirperplexities? What had it all been about?

It was as if the snow had melted, and the great gate had closed itself. Was it Paradise or Purgatory they had shut themselves out from?

XIII. 

A GOLDEN VISTA. 

Tramp, tramp, tramp, --the heavy boots had sounded on the road, --tramp, tramp, tramp! since Sunday morning, and now it was Tuesday noon. Oftenfor hours together there had been no witness to the steady march, savethe lordly pine-trees, standing straight and grand in the mountain"parks, " or scaling boldly the precipitate sides of the encroachingcliffs; the cliffs themselves, frowning sternly above the path; andalways somewhere on the horizon, towering above the nearer hills orclosing in the end of the valley, a snowy peak gleaming like atranscendent promise against the sky. Waldo Kean, as he strode steadilydown from his father's mountain ranch toward a wonderful new futurewhose door was about to be flung wide to him, felt the inspiration ofthose rugged mountain influences, the like of which had been hisfamiliars all the seventeen years of his life. The chattering brookshad nothing to say to him as they came dashing down from the hills tojoin the rollicking stream whose course his path followed; thesunflowers, gilding the edge of the road, were but frills and furbelowsto his thinking. But in the pine-trees there was a perfectly clearsignificance, --in those hardy growths, finding a foothold among therocks, drawing sustenance from Heaven knew where, yet ever growingskyward, straight and tall and strong. As he passed among them, standingat gracious intervals in the broad "parks, " they seemed to flush withunderstanding and sympathy. His way led from north to south and as oftenas he turned and looked back among the trees, the stems glowed ruddilyand his heart warmed to them. He knew that it was merely the southernexposure that had tinged their bark and caused that friendly glow, buthe liked it all the same. 

Now and then the solitude was relieved by the appearance of a horsemanriding with flapping arms and jingling spurs up the pass; or again thesilence was broken by the inconsequent bleating of a flock of sheepwandering in search of their scant pasturage or huddling together, anagitated mass of grimy wool, its outskirts painfully exposed to thesharp but well-intentioned admonitions of a somewhat irascible collie. Neither man nor beast took special note of the overgrown boy striding soconfidently on his way, nor was one observer more likely than the otherto guess what inspiring thoughts were animating the roughly clad, uncouth form. The boy's clothes were shabby and travel-stained, and overhis shoulders was slung a canvas bag, its miscellaneous contents makingsharp, angular protuberances on its surface. He had left the ranch withclothes and books enough to give the bag a pretty weight, and this hehad unconcernedly increased by the insertion into the strainingreceptacle of many a "specimen" picked up by the way. For the eyes werekeen and observant that looked out from under the strongly marked brows, and bits of fluorite and "fool's gold, " and of rarer minerals as well, which had lain for years beside the road, noted as little by cowboy andranchman and mountain tourist as by the redman whose feet first trod thepass, were destined to-day to start on their travels, enlisted in theservice of Science. 

It must have been a daring specimen indeed that should have thought ofresisting its fate when it came at the hands of Waldo Kean. There was acertain rough strength not only in the muscular frame, but in the faceitself, with its rude features, its determined outlines, its heavyunder-lip; and in the stiff black hair roughly clipped on the ampleskull, growing in a bushy thatch above the keen dark eyes. It seemed butnatural that just that type of boy should feel himself drawn to thestudy of the rocky foundation of things. 

Four years ago Waldo Kean had found out that he wanted to be ageologist, and that to this end he must go to college. Yet though thecollege was in Springtown, and though Springtown lies close to the footof the "range, " it had taken him four years to get there. During thatenforced interval he had done his full share of the heavy ranch work, hehad found one and another means of accumulating a little capital of hisown; at off hours and off seasons he had cudgelled his brain over bookswith ugly difficult titles and anything but tractable contents. In shorthe had fairly earned his passport, and now, at last, on this radiantOctober morning, he was striding over the few intervening miles thatseparated him from that wonderful Land of Promise, where Latin and Greekgrew on every tree, and the air was electric with the secrets of Scienceitself. What wonder that he was unconscious of hardship and fatigue, that he counted as nothing the three days' tramp; the icy nights spentout under the chill stars; the only half-satisfied hunger of a healthyboy, living on food which the dry mountain air was rapidly reducing to apowdery consistency! He was going to College; he was going to be aGeologist. What did he care for any paltry details by the way?

He seated himself for his noon meal, the last crumbling sandwich of hisstore, at the foot of a big pine-tree, just where the pass narrows to awild ravine. As he took out the slice of bread and meat neatly wrappedabout with brown paper, his thoughts reverted with a certain sorecompunction to the hand that had prepared it for him. It had been hismother's farewell service, and he somehow realized now as he had notrealized at the time, how much all those careful preparations meant, toher and to himself. He remembered how, late Saturday night, she had satmending a new rip in his best coat, and that when she pricked herfinger, and a little bead of red blood had to be disposed of before shecould go on with the work, he had wondered why women were alwayspricking their fingers when there was no need. It was not until the verymoment of departure that the pain of it seized him. His mother was aquiet, undemonstrative woman of the New England race, and if mother andson loved each other, --as it now transpired that they did, --no mentionhad ever been made of the fact on either side. The consequence was, thatwhen, at parting, an iron hand seemed to be gripping the boy's throat, he had been so taken at unawares, that he had found it impossible toarticulate a single word. On the mother's part there had been onelittle, half-suppressed sob that sounded in his ears yet. It left anache in him that he did not at first know what to do with, but whichclearly called for heroic treatment. Accordingly, after much ponderingthe situation, he had adopted a great resolution, --a resolution whichinvolved no less arduous a task than that of writing a letter to hismother and telling her that he loved her. He thought it possible thatthe confession might give her pleasure, coming from a safe distance andinvolving no immediate consequences, and in any case he did not feeljustified in keeping to himself a discovery which so nearly concernedanother person. He had thought a good deal about the letter and of howhe should approach the subject, and he had about decided to make themomentous statement in a postscript down in one corner and to sign it"Waldy. "

He was so near his journey's end that he allowed himself rather a longernooning than usual. He stretched himself on his back on the pineneedles, and with his hands clasped behind his head, he gazed up throughthe spreading branches to the marvellous blue of the sky. When he shouldbe a scientific man and know all sorts of things besidesgeology, --meteorology and chemistry and the like, --perhaps he shouldfind out why the sky looked so particularly deep and palpitating whenyou were lying flat on your back and there were some pine branches inbetween. He meant, one of these days, to know everything there was to beknown, and to discover a little something new besides. 

A train of cars thundered by on the other side of the brook not thirtyyards from his feet. He did not change his position, but looking downthe long length of his legs, he saw the roaring, snorting beast of anengine rush by, trailing its tail of cars behind it. 

"And yet the power isn't in the steam, " he thought to himself, "but inthe brain that controls it. Just the brain. That's all. " At the thoughta sudden impatience seized him to arrive at that goal where the braintakes command, and he sprang to his feet, and shouldering his pack, strode on down the pass. Tramp, tramp, tramp! went the heavy boots; thegreat bag weighed like lead across his shoulders; a gnawing hunger hadsomehow got into him since he swallowed the crumbling bread and meat. 

"The water was good, at any rate, " he said to himself, glancing moreappreciatively than before at the crystal stream that still raced on alevel with the road. The way led across both brook and railroad justthere, and there was a sharp turn in the walls of the cañon. He lookedback and saw a train rushing down the pass, swiftly, --surreptitiously, it seemed, so curiously little noise did it make on the down-grade. Aninstant later he had turned the corner, and found himself face to facewith a pair of horses harnessed to a buggy, trotting rapidly up thepass, straight toward that railroad crossing. They were already closeupon him and he could see a man and woman seated in the buggy. He hadonly time to fling his pack to one side and wave his arms in warning, and then, his warning being unheeded, he sprang at the horses' heads andseized the bridles. The horses reared and plunged, there was the sharpwhistle of a whiplash, a stinging blow cut him across the face. Theblood rushed to his head in a sudden fury, but instinctively he kept hishold upon the plunging horses. They had all but dragged him to the trackwhen the train rushed by. The whole thing had happened in twenty secondsof time. 

He dropped his hold and sprang to one side while the horses dashed onand tore round the projecting corner of rock, the buggy slewing wildlyafter them. 

Waldo Kean stood an instant with clenched hands and crimson face, astraight welt standing out white and angry across his cheek. Then, --"Pooh! he muttered, I'm going to college all the same!"--and hepicked up his hat which the horses had trampled out of shape, shoulderedhis pack and strode on down the pass. His cheek was smarting with pain, but he was hardly aware of that; there was a yawning rip in the arm-holeof his coat, but that was of still less consequence. He had all he coulddo to attend to the conflicting emotions of the moment; the sense ofoutraged dignity contending, not very successfully, with a livelyconcern for the fate of those people he had tried to rescue. He thoughtit more than likely that they would both get killed, for the horseswere quite unmanageable when they disappeared around the corner, and heremembered an ugly bit of road just above that point. He was not alittle disgusted with himself when he caught himself hoping that theymight get out of the scrape alive. Well, if he could not "stay mad"longer than that, he told himself, he might as well forget the wholebusiness and be on the look-out for specimens. 

Meanwhile the pass was getting grander every moment; the brook wasworking its way deeper below the level of the road, while here and therein this sombre defile a splash of yellow aspen gleamed like living goldon the face of the precipice. The wild and beautiful gorge interestedhim in spite of himself; it disengaged his thoughts alike from hispersonal grievance, and from his dissatisfied contemplation of his ownlack of proper vindictiveness. There was nothing grand like this in theneighborhood of the ranch. It was more like his father's description ofthe "Flume" and the "Notch, " those natural wonders of the White Hillswhich Waldo Kean the elder liked to talk about. "When I was a boy overin New Hampshire, " he used to say; and to the children it seemed as if"over in New Hampshire" could not be more than a day's journey from theranch. 

[Illustration: "THE WILD AND BEAUTIFUL GORGE. "]

"When I was a boy over in New Hampshire, " he would say, "I got it intomy head that if I could only get away to a new place I sh'd get to besomething big; and the farther away I got, the bigger I expected to be. Colorado was a territory then, 'n I thought, 'f I could only get outhere they'd make me gov'nor's like 's not. 'N I do' know but what I'dhave looked to be made President of the United States 'f I'd sighted thePacific Ocean!"

Then the shaggy, keen-eyed mountaineer who made so light of boyishexpectations would knock the logs together and take a puff or two at hispipe before coming to the climax of his remarks, which varied accordingto the lesson he wished to inculcate. 

"It took me several years of wrastling with life, " he was fond ofsaying, "to find out that it ain't so much matter _whar_ you be, as_what_ you be. 'N if I was you, Waldy, "--here was the application, --"I'dcontrive to learn a little something on my own hook, before I aspired togo consorting with them as knows it all!"

When, however, the time was ripe, and "Waldy, " having fulfilled theseconditions, was fairly off for college, the ranchman had signified hisapproval of his son's course by escorting him a few miles on his way. The boy had felt himself highly honored by the attention, yet when thetime of parting came, it was with no such stricture about his throat ashad taken him at unawares in the early morning, that he watched the tallform disappearing among the pine-trees. There was a certainself-sufficiency about the "old man, "--aged forty-five, --that precludedany embarrassing tenderness in one's relations with him. 

Waldo was thinking of his father as he strode down the pass with thatwelt on his cheek. He had an idea that his father would not make so muchof the affair as he was taking himself to task for not doing. And up tothis time his father had been his standard. He not only had a very highopinion of him as he was, but he had a boyish faith in what he mighthave been, a belief that if he had had half a chance he would have madehis mark in the world. He was glad that he bore his father's name, andhe was quite determined to make it stand for something in the minds ofmen before he got through with it. It sounded like a name that was to bemade to mean something. 

Suddenly the sound of wheels coming down the pass struck his ear. Theywere the wheels of a buggy, he thought, and of a buggy drawn by a pairof horses. The suggestion was distasteful to Waldo Kean just at thatmoment, and he quickened his pace somewhat. Presently the wheels stoppedclose behind him, a firm step sounded on the road, he felt a heavy handon his shoulder. He looked up, and his worst forebodings were realized. It was the face he had caught sight of in that particular buggy which hedid not like to think about, and the hand that rested on his shoulderwas the one which had swung the whip to such good purpose. 

A very hearty and pleasant voice was saying; "Do you know, I never didanything in all my life I was so sorry for!" but the boy strode on asstolidly as if he had been stone-deaf. 

The other, though a man of heavy build, kept pace with him easily. 

"You see, " he remarked, after waiting a reasonable time for a reply; "Inever knew what it was to owe any one so much as I owe you!"

Not being, in fact, stone-deaf, Waldo found himself obliged to make someresponse. As much from embarrassment as from anger, he spoke gruffly. 

"That's nothing, " he said. "I'd have done as much for a stray dog, --andlike as not I'd have got bit all the same!"

His companion was making a study of him rather than of his words;--ofthe defiant pose of the head above the shabby, uncouth figure, --of thestormy eyes set in the fiery crimson of the face. He could not resentthe rough words, but neither could he help being amused at the tragicexaggeration of the figure. 

"Do you know, you _do_ look like a brigand!" he said, in an easy tone, that had a curious effect upon the excited boy. "I don't so much wonderthat I took you for a footpad!"

No one but Dick Dayton, --for it was the Springtown "Mascot" himself whowas trying to make friends with the ranch boy, --could have "hit off" thesituation so easily. The "brigand's" face had already relaxed somewhat, though his tongue was not to be so lightly loosed. 

"The fact is, " Dayton went on, following up his advantage; "The fact is, there was a hold-up here in the pass last week, and my wife and I werejust saying what a jolly good place it was for that kind of thing, whenyou flung yourself at the horses' heads. I don't know what you wouldhave done under the circumstances, but I know you'd have been either afool or a prophet if you hadn't let fly for all you were worth!"

The boy looked up at the friendly, humorous face, and pleasantrelentings stole upon him. 

"Well, then, " he said, with a sudden, flashing smile, which illuminatedhis harsh countenance, very much as the gold of the aspens lit up thewall of frowning rock over there. "That's all right, and I'm glad I didit. "

"All right!" cried Dayton, with a sudden rising emotion in hisvoice, --"I should think it _was_ all right! It isn't every day that aman and his wife get their lives saved in that offhand way! Why! I'm all_balled up_ every time I think of it!"

"Oh, well; I don't know!" said Waldo, relapsing into embarrassmentagain; "I guess it was the horses I thought of as much as anything!"

Dayton was still too sincerely moved to laugh outright at thisunexpected turn, as he would have done in spite of himself underordinary circumstances, but he found it a relief to slip back into histone of easy banter. 

"If that's the case, " he said; "would you mind coming back and beingintroduced to the horses? They are just behind us, and I think theyought to have a chance to make their acknowledgments. "

The boy, very much aware that he had said the wrong thing, yetattracted, in spite of himself and his own blunders, to the good-naturedgiant, yielded, awkwardly enough, and retraced his steps. They were soonface to face with the horses, making their way at a slow walk down theroad, driven by the woman whose face Waldo had had a confused glimpse ofin the heat of that fateful encounter. 

"This is my wife, Mrs. Dayton, " said the big man; "and you are?"

"Waldo Kean. "

For the first time in his life the boy had taken his hat off as a matterof ceremony. He had done so in unconscious imitation of Dayton, who hadlifted his own as he mentioned his wife's name. Waldo Kean did notperhaps realize that the education he was so ambitious of achieving wasbegun then and there. 

The shapeless old hat once off, he did not find it easy to put it onagain, and, as Mrs. Dayton leaned forward with extended hand, he stoppedto tuck the battered bundle of felt into his pocket before clasping thebit of dainty kid she held out to him. 

She was already speaking, and, strangely enough, there was something inher voice which made him think of his mother's as it had sounded justbefore it broke into that pathetic little sob. 

"There is so little good in talking about what a person feels, " she wassaying; "that I'm not going to try. " Yes, the little break in the voicewas something he had heard but once in his life before; yet nothingcould have been less like his mother than the expressive young facebending toward him. 

The great half-civilized boy took one look at the face, and all hisself-consciousness vanished. 

"I guess anybody 'd like to do you a good turn!" he declared boldly, ashe loosed the small gloved hand from the big clutch he had given it. Thecharming face flushed as warmly as if it had never been complimentedbefore. 

"Are you going to stay in Springtown?" its owner asked. 

"I'm going to the college, " the young geologist answered proudly. 

"Then you'd better let us have your pack, " said Dayton. "We can do thatmuch for you! There's lots of room in back here. "

Waldo hesitated; he was used to carrying his own burdens. But Daytonhad hold of the pack, and it seemed to find its own way into the buggy. 

"There! That will ride nicely, " said Dayton. "Now I suppose we may callourselves quits?" and he glanced quizzically at the boy who had clearlymissed the amiable satire of the suggestion. 

The two walked on together for some time, keeping close beside thebuggy. The horses were perfectly docile now that no one seemed disposedto fly at their heads. Waldo began to feel that he had really beenneedlessly violent with them in that first encounter. He pulled out hishat and put it on again. 

They had come to the narrowest and most stupendous part of the pass, andWaldo, now wonderfully at his ease, had broached the subject of theNotch. He was astonished to find how conversible these new acquaintanceswere. They proved much easier to talk with than his ranch neighbors whomhe had known all his life. And, better still, they knew a surprising lotabout minerals and flowers and things of that sort, that were but sticksand stones to his small world at home. 

When, at last, these very remarkable and well-informed people droveaway, and he watched their buggy disappearing down the pass, he foundhimself possessed of a new and inspiring faith in the approachablenessof the great world he was about to confront. He had rather expected todeal with it with hammer and pick, --to wrest the gold of experience fromthe hardest and flintiest bedrock; and all at once he felt as if he hadstruck a great "placer" with nuggets of the most agreeable descriptionlying about, ready to his hand!

As he reflected upon these things, the pass was opening out into acurious, cup-shaped valley, crowded with huge hotels and diminutivecottages of more or less fantastic architecture, clustering in thevalley, climbing the hills, perching on jutting rocks and overhangingterraces. Waldo knew the secret of this startling outcrop of humanenterprise. He knew that here, in this populous nook, were hiddensprings of mineral waters, bubbling and sparkling up from the caverns ofthe earth. He found his way to one of the springs, where he took a long, deep draught of the tingling elixir, speculating the while, as to itsnature and source. Then on he went, refreshed and exhilarated. 

A few miles of dusty highway brought him at last within the borders ofclassic Springtown, classic in its significance to him, as theelm-embowered shades of Cambridge or New Haven to the New England boy athome. As he entered upon the broad Western Avenue, the declining sun hadnearly touched the great Peak, its long, level rays striking a perfectglory across the boughs of the cottonwood trees shining in the height oftheir yellow autumn splendor. They arched the walk he trod, andstretched to the northward, a marvellous golden vista, as brilliant asthe promise of the future itself. There were fine residences on eitherside of the avenue, finer than anything the ranch boy had ever dreamedof, while off to the west stretched the line of mountains, transfiguredin the warm afternoon light. But all the boy could see or think of wasthat golden vista, stretching before him to the very portals of thehouse of learning. 

And presently, along this glorified path, a man approached, and as thetwo came face to face, he stopped before the boy and called him byname. 

[Illustration: A GOLDEN VISTA. ]

The whole situation was so wonderful, --so magical it seemed to Waldo inthe exaltation of the moment, --that he did not pause to consider how hisname should be known to a chance passer-by; and when the stranger wenton to give his own name, and it was the name of the college president, the boy accepted the fact that dreams come true, and only held his heada little higher and trod the path a little more firmly, as he walkedbeside the president under the yellow cottonwoods. 

"I came out to meet you, " the president was saying, in a big, friendlyvoice. "I heard you were coming, and I thought we might talk things overa bit on the way. "

They chatted a little of the boy's plans and resources, of the classeshe was to enter, and of what he might accomplish in his college course;and then they came out from under the trees, and found themselves uponthe college campus. A game of football was going on there, the figuresof the players fairly irradiated in the golden light which fell aslantthe great open space, touching the scant yellowish grass into a play ofshimmering color. They stood a moment, while the president pointed outto Waldo the different college buildings. Then:--

"I have something pleasant to tell you, " his companion remarked, with aglance at the strong eager face of the boy. "The college has just hadthe gift of a scholarship. "

"I'm glad of that, " said Waldo, heartily, finding a cheerful omen inthe fact that the day was an auspicious one for others beside himself. 

"The gift is a sort of thank-offering, " he heard his new friend say;"from a man who fell in with _you_--up in the pass this afternoon!"

The boy's face went crimson at the words, but he only fixed his eyes themore intently upon the football players, as if his destiny had dependedupon the outcome of the game. 

"The scholarship is the largest we have;"--he heard the wordsdistinctly, but they struck him as coming from quite a long distance. "It is to be called--_the Waldo Kean Scholarship!_"

The Waldo Kean Scholarship! How well that sounded! What a good, convincing ring it had, as if it had been intended from the verybeginning of things!

He stood silent a moment, pondering it, while the president waited forhim to speak; and as he watched the field the football players seemed tomingle and vanish from sight like shadows in a dream, while in theirplace a certain tall angular form stood out, loose-jointed, somewhatbent, yet full of character and power. All the splendor of the settingsun centred upon that rugged vision, that yet did not bate one jot ofits homely reality. 

And the boy, lifting his head with a proud gesture, and with astraightening of the whole figure, looked the president in the face andsaid: "_That is my father's name!_"

They started to cross the campus, where the football players were oncemore in possession. The sun had dropped behind the Peak, and the glorywas fading from the face of the earth; but to Waldo Kean, walking sideby side with the college president, the world was alight with the raysof a sun whose setting was yet a long way off; and the golden vista hebeheld before him was nothing less than the splendid illimitablefuture, --the future of the New West, which was to be his by right ofconquest!

THE END. 

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Illustrated by George Sloane. 15th thousand. 16°, gilt top $1. 25

"Full of the picturesqueness, the novelty, the beauty of life in thecity of gondolas and gondoliers. "--_Literary World. _

The above two volumes together in box $2. 50

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PRATT PORTRAITS

Sketched in a New England Suburb. 12th thousand. Illustrated byGeorge Sloane. 12°, gilt top $1. 50

"The lines the author cuts in her vignette are sharp and clear, but shehas, too, not alone the knack of color, but what is rarer, the gift ofhumor. "--_New York Times. _

ONE OF THE PILGRIMS

A Bank Story. 6th thousand. 12°, gilt top $1. 25

"The story is graceful and delightful, full of vivacity, and is notwithout pathos. It is thoroughly interesting. "--_Congregationalist. _

G. P. PUTNAM'S SONSNew York--London

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_Myrtle Reed's New Novel_

MASTER OF THE VINEYARDBY MYRTLE REED

Author of "Old Rose and Silver, " "Lavender and Old Lace, " etc. 

There is probably no other living writer whose books have theextraordinary popularity of Myrtle Reed's. 

There is always a large circle of readers waiting for each of her newbooks as it appears. But the remarkable feature of Miss Reed'spopularity is that each one of her books continues to show increasingsales every year. The more the public has of them, the more it wants. This can be said of no other fiction of the day. 

Miss Reed's stories are always charming, but her latest book issomething more than this. The humor is delightful, and the panorama oflife, with its well-balanced picturing of lights and shadows, possessesthe quality best-named fascination. 

With Frontispiece in Color by Blendon Campbell. Crown 8vo. Beautifullyprinted and bound. Cloth, $1. 50 net. Full Red Leather, $2. 00 net, Antique Calf, $2. 50 net. Lavender Silk, $3. 50 net. 

Uniform with "Lavender and Old Lace"

G. P. PUTNAM'S SONSNEW YORK--LONDON