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"You will remain of stone before us with a certain reverent air. Our imagination was not fired.

gone away from his face. with us one year, anyway?"

"If my husband wishes it, I am very will ling," she said, "and very grateful to you."

"Ha!" said the lieutenant, "I can see wonderful things now-waggons, camp fires, supper parties; and a glass of wine to drink to the health of our friends away in Eng. land. Lady Sylvia, your husband and I will write a book about it--A Year's Hunting in Colorado and the Rocky Mountains.”

"I hope my husband will have something else to do," Lady Sylvia said, "unless you mean to shame us altogether."

"But no one can be working always. Ah, my good friends," he said, addressing the remaining two of the party, "you will be sorry when you start to go home to England. You will make a great mistake then. You wish to see the Alleghany Mountains in the Indian summer? Oh yes, very good; but you could see that next year; and in the mean time think what splendid fun we shall have-"

"Ask Bell," said Queen T-, with a quiet smile, "whether she would rather return with us now, or wait out here to hear of your shooting black-tailed deer and mountain sheep?"

At this point a message was brought into us, and it was unanimously resolved to ask Bell's business friend to come in and sit down and have a glass of wine with us. Surely there were no secrets about the doings of Five-Ace Jack unfit for us all to hear? We found Mr. T. W. Ga most worthy and excellent person, whose temper had not at all been soured by his failure to find the philosopher's stone. It is true, there was a certain sadness over the brown and wrinkled face when he described to us how the many processes for separating the gold from the crushed quartz could just about reach paying expenses, and without doing much more; and how some little improvement in one of these processes, that might be stumbled on by accident, would suddenly make the discoverer a millionaire, the gold bearing quartz being simply inexhaustible. It was quite clear that Mr. G― had lost some money in this direction. He was anxious we should go up to Georgetown, when we were at Idaho, to see some mines he had; in fact, he produced sundry little parcels from his pocket, unrolled them, and placed the bits

He had known Colonel Sloane very well, and he spoke most discreetly of him; for was not his niece here in mourning? Nevertheless, there was a slight touch of humour in his tone when he told us of one of Bell's mines-the Virgin Agnes-which led one or two of us to suspect that Five-Ace Jack had not quite abandoned his tricks, even when his increasing riches rendered them unnecessary. The Virgin Agnes was a gulch mine, somewhere in the bed of the stream that comes rolling down the Clear Creek canon and it was originally owned by a company. It used to pay very well. But by-and-by the yield gradually diminished, until it scarcely paid the wages of the men ; and, in fact, the mine was not considered worth working further. At this point it was bought by Colonel Sloane; and the strange thing was that almost immediately it began to yield in a surprising manner, and had continued to do so ever since. Mr. G congratulated our Bell on being the owner of this mine, and said he would have much pleasure in showing it to her when she went up to Idaho; but he gravely ended his story without dropping any hint as to the reason why the Virgin Agnes had slowly drooped and suddenly revived. Nor did he tell us whether the men employed in that mine were generously allowed by Colonel Sloane to share in his good fortune.

He asked Bell whether she proposed to start for Idaho next day. She looked at her husband.

"Oh no," said the lieutenant, promptly. "We have a friend arriving here on Saturday. We mean to wait for him."

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Pray don't delay on his account, Lady Sylvia said, anxiously. "I can very well remain here for him, and come up to you afterward."

"Oh we shall have plenty to do in these three or four days--plenty," the lieutenant said; "I must see about the ladies' saddles to-morrow, and I want to buy an extra rifle or two; and a revolver, and a hunting-knife. And then this list of things for the house at Idaho --"

No doubt there was a good deal to be done; only one would have thought that three or four days were pretty fair time in which to prepare for a short trip up the Clear Creek canon. It was not, however.

On the Saturday morning every one was most extraordinarily busy, especially as the time approached for the arrival of the train from Cheyenne. Next day all the shops

would be shut; and on Monday morning ON

early we started.

"Lady Sylvia," said the lieutenant, with ingenuous earnestness, "I must really go after those saddles again. Tell Mr. Balfour I shall be back to lunch, will you, if you please?"

Indeed, one went away on one mission, and the other on another, until there was no one of the party left in the hotel with Lady Sylvia but Queen T. The latter was in her own room. She rang, and sent a servant to ask her friend to come and see her. She took Lady Sylvia's hand when she entered.

"I am going to ask you to excuse me," said she, with great innocence. "I feel a little tired; I think I will lie down for an hour, until luncheon-time. But you know, dear Lady Sylva, if there are none of them down stairs, all you have to do is to get into the omnibus when it calls at the door, and they will drive you to the station; and you will not have long to wait."

The white hand she held was trembling violently. Lady Sylvia said nothing at all; but her eyes were moist, and she silently kissed her friend, and went away.

About an hour thereafter, four of us were seated at a certain small table, all as mute as mice. The women pretended to be very busy with the things before them. No one looked toward the door. Nay, no one would look up as two figures came into the big saloon, and came walking down toward us.

"Mrs. Von Rosen," said the voice of Lady Sylvia, in the gayest of tones, "let me present to you your new agent-"

But her gayety suddenly broke down. She left him to shake hands with us, and sat down on a chair in the dusky corner, and hid away her face from us, sobbing to her

self.

"Ha!" cried the lieutenant, in his stormiest way, for he would have none of this sentiment, "do you know what we have got for you after your long journey? My good friend, there is a beefsteak coming for you; and that-do you know what that is ?-that is a bottle of English ale!"

CHAPTER LI.

OUR LAST NIGHT TOGETHER.

IN that Monday morning when we left Denver to seek Bell's distant home in these pale-blue mountains, there was no great rejoicing among us. It was the last day of our long journeying together, and we had been pleasantly associated; moreover, one of us was going to leave her dearest friend in these remote wilds, and she was rather downhearted about it. Happily the secret exultation of Lady Sylvia, which could not altogether be concealed, kept up our spirits somewhat: we wondered whether she was not going to carry her husband's portmanteau for him, so anxious was she about his comfort.

The branch line of rail that pierces for some distance the Clear Creek canon takes a circuitous course on leaving Denver through some grassy plains which are intersected by narrow and muddy rivulets, and are sufficiently uninteresting; so that there was plenty of opportunity for these sojourners to sketch out something of their plans of living for the information of the new comer. But Balfour-who, by the way, had got thoroughly bronzed by his travelling-would not hear of all the, fine pleasure excursions that the lieutenant was for planning out.

"We are under enough obligations to you," said he, "even if I find I can do this thing; but if I discover that I am of no use at all, then your charity would be too great. Let us get to work first; then, if the way is clear, we can have our play afterward. deed, you will be able to command my attendance, once I have qualified myself to be your servant."

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"Yes, that is reasonable," said the lieutenant.

"I am quite sure," said Lady Sylvia, "that my husband would be a poor companion for you, so long as our affairs are unsettled—”"

"And, besides," said Balfour, with a laugh, "You don't know what splendid alternative schemes I have to fall back on. On the voyage over I used to lie awake at night, and try to imagine all the ways in which a man may earn a living who is suddenly made penniless. And I got up some good schemes, I think; good for a man who could get some backing, I mean."

"Will you please to tell us some of them?" said Queen T—, with no apparent sarcasm. "We are so often appealed to for charity; and it would be delightful to be able to tell poor people how to make a fortune."

"The poor people would have to have some influence. But would you like to hear my schemes? They are numberless; and they are all based on the supposition that in London there are a very large number of people who would pay high prices for the simplest necessaries of life, provided you could supply these of the soundest quality. Do you see? I take the case of milk, for example. Think of the number of mothers in London who would pay a double price for milk for their children, if you could guarantee them that it was quite unwatered, and got from cows living wholesomely in the country, instead of in London stalls! That is only one of a dozen things. Take bread, for example. I believe there are thousands of people in London who would pay extra for French bread, if they only knew how to get it supplied to them. Very well; I step in with my association-for the wants of a great place like London can only be supplied by big machinery-and I get a duke or two, and a handful of M.P.'s with me, to give it a philanthropic look; and, of course, they make me manager. I do a good public work, and I benefit myself." "Do you think you would succeed as a manager of a dairy? said Queen T-, gently.

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"As well, probably," said he, laughing, "as the manager of Mrs. Von Rosen's mines and farms! But having got up the company, you would not ask me to look after the cows."

“Oh, Hugh,” said Lady Sylvia, anxiously, "I hope you will never have anything to do with any company. It is that which has got poor papa into such trouble. I wish he could leave all these things for a time, and come out here for a holiday; it would do him a great deal of good."

This filial wish did not seem to awaken any cager response, though Mrs. Von Rosen murmured something about the pleasure it would give her to see Lord Willowby. We had not much hope of his lordship consenting to live at a ranch.

And now we drew near the Rockies. First of all, rising from the plains, we encountered

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some ridges of brown, seared, earthy-looking hills, for the most part bare, though here and there the crest was crowned by a ridge of pine. At the mouth of one of the valleys came upon Golden City, a scattered hamlet of small houses, with some trees, and some thin lines of a running stream about it. Then, getting farther into the mountains, we entered the narrow and deep gorge of the Clear Creek canon, a naturally formed highway that runs and winds sinuously for about thirty miles between the huge walls of rock on either side. It was not a beautiful valley, this deep cleft among the mountains, but a gloomy and desolate place, with lightning-blasted pines among the grays and reds of the fused fire-rocks; an opaque gray-green river rushing down the chasm; the trees overhead, apparently at the summit of the twin precipices, black against the glimmer of the blue sky. Here and there, however, were vivid gleams of colour; a blaze of the yellow leaves of the cotton-wood, or a mass of crimson creeper growing over over a gray rock. We began to wonder, too, whether this small river could really have cut this deep and narrow chasm in the giant mountains; but there, sure enough, far above us on the deep slopes, were the deep holes in the intertwisted quartz out of which the water in by-gone ages must have slowly worked the bowlders of some alien material. There were other holes, too, visible on the sides of this gloomy gorge, with some brown earth in front of them, as if some animal had been trying to scrape for itself a den there: these were the

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prospect holes" that miners had bored to spy into the secrets of the everlasting hills. Down below us, again, was the muddy stream, rushing between its beds of gravel; and certainly this railway carriage, on its narrow guage, seemed to tilt dangerously over toward the sheer descent and the plunging waters. The train, indeed, as it would round the rocks, seemed to be some huge python, hunted into its gloomy lair in the mountains.

We were glad to get out of it, and into the clear sunshine, at the terminus-Floyd Hill; and here we found a couple of stage-coaches, each with four horses, awaiting to carry us still farther up into the Rockies. They were strange-looking vehicles, apparently mostly built of leather, and balanced on leather springs of enormous thickness.

But they

soon disappeared from sight. We were lost in such clouds of dust as were never yet beheld by mortal man. Those who had gone inside to escape found that the half-dozen windows would not keep shut; and that, as they were flung hither and thither by the plunging of the coach up the steep mountain paths, they lost sight of each other in the dense yellow clouds. And then sometimes a gust of wind would cleave an opening in the clouds; and, behold! a flashing picture of pine-clad mountains, with a dark blue sky above. That jolting journey seemed to last for ever and ever, and the end of it found us changed into new creatures. But the coat of dust that covered us from head to heel had not sufficed to blind us; and now before our eyes we found the end and aim of our journey-the far hamlet of Idaho.

Bell looked rather bewildered; she had dreaded this approach to her future home. And Queen T-, anxious above all things that her friend's first impressions should be favourable, cried out,

"Oh, Bell, how beautiful, and clean, and bright it is!"

women-folk, from which Bell, more especially, was obviously suffering. When we all assembled thereafter at our mid-day meal, she was still somewhat pale. The lieutenant declared that, after so much travelling, she must now take a long rest. He would not allow her to go on to Georgetown for a week at least.

And was there ever in all the world a place more conducive to rest than this distant, silent, sleepy Idaho up here in the lonely mountains? When the coaches had whirled away in the dust toward Georgetown, there was nothing to break the absolute calm but the soft rustling of the small trees; there was not a shred of cloud in the blue sky to bar the glare of the white road with a bit of grateful shadow.

After having had a look at Bell's house, we crossed to the other side of the valley, and entered a sort of tributary gorge between the hills which is known as the Soda Creek Canon. Here all vestiges of civilization seemed to end, but for the road that led we knew not whither; and in the strange silence we wandered onward into this new And certainly our first glance at Idaho, world, whose plants and insects and animals after the heat and dust we had come through, were all unfamiliar to us, or familiar only as was cheering enough. We thought for an they suggested some similarity to their Enginstant of Chamounix as we saw the small | lish relatives. And yet Queen T―― strove white houses by the side of the green, rushng stream, and the great mountains rising sheer beyond. There was a cool and pleasant wind rustling through the leaves of the young cotton-wood trees planted in front of the inn. And when we turned to the mountains on the other side of the narrow valley, we found even the lofty pine woods glowing with colour; for the mid-day sun was pouring down on the undergrowth-now of a golden yellow--so that one could almost believe that these far slopes were covered with buttercups. The coaches had stopped at the inn-the Beebe House, as it is called --and Colonel Sloane's heiress was received with much distinction. They showed her Colonel Sloane's house. It stood on a knoll some distance off; but we could see that it was a cheerful-looking place, with a green painted veranda round the white walls, and a few pines and cotton-woods about. In the meantime we had taken rooms at the inn, and speedily set to work to get some of the dust removed. It was a useful occupation; for no doubt the worry of it tended to allay that nervous excitement among our

to assure Bell that there was nothing wonderful about the place, except its extreme silence and a certain sad desolation of beauty. Was not this our identical Michaelmas daisy? she asked. She was overjoyed when she discovered a real and veritable harebell -a trifle darker in colour than our harebell, but a harebell all the same. She made a dart at a cluster of yellow flowers growing up among the rocks, thinking they were the mountain saxifrage; but they turned out to be a composite plant-probably some sort of hawk-weed. Her efforts to reach these flowers had startled a large bird out of the bushes above; and as it darted off, we could see that it was of a dark and luminous blue: she had to confess that he was a stranger. But surely we could not have the heart to regard the merry little chipmunk as a stranger-which of all living creatures is the friendliest, the blithest, the most comical. In this Soda Creek canon he reigns supreme; every rock and stone and bush seems instinct with life as this Proteus of the animal world scuds away like a mouse, or shoots up the hill-side like a lizard, only, when he has

got a short distance, to perch himself up on his hind legs, and curl up his bushy tail, and eye us demurely as he affects to play with a bit of may-weed. Then we see what the small squirrel-like animal really is-a beautiful little creature with longitudinal bars of golden brown and black along his back; the same bars on his head, by the side of his bright, watchful eyes; the red of a robin's breast on his shoulders; his furry tail, jauntily cocked up behind, of a pale brown. We were never tired of watching the tricks and attitudes of this friendly little chap. We knew quite well that his sudden dart from the lee of some stone was only the pretense of fright; before he had gone a yard he would sit up on his haunches and look at you, and stroke his nose with one of his forepaws. Sometimes he would not even run away a yard, but sit quietly and watchfully to see us pass. We guessed that there were few stone-throwing boys about the Rocky Mountains.

Behold! the valley at last shows one brief symptom of human life; a waggon drawn by a team of oxen comes down the steep road, and the driver thereof is worth looking at, albeit his straw sombrero shades his handsome and sun-tanned face. He is an ornamental person, this bullwhacker; with the cord tassels of his buckskin jacket just appearing from below the great Spanish cloak of blue cloth that is carelessly thrown round his shoulders. Look at his whip, too -the heavy thongs of it intertwisted like serpents; he has no need of bowie-knife or pistol in these wilds while he carries about him that formidable weapon The oxen pass on down the valley; the dust subsides; again we are left with the silence, and the warm sunlight, and the aromatic odours of the may-weed, and the cunning antics of our ubiquitous friend the chipmunk.

"There," said the lieutenant, looking up to the vast hill-slopes above, where the scattered pines stood black among the blaze of yellow undergrowth, "that is the beginning of our hunting country. All the secrets are behind that fringe of wood. You must not imagine, Lady Sylvia, that our life at Idaho is to be only this dulness of walking-"

"I can assure you I do not feel it dull at all," she said; "but I am sorry that our party is to be broken up-just when it has been completed. Oh, I wish you could stay with us!" she adds, addressing another

member of the party, whose hands are full of wild flowers.

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My dear Lady Sylvia," says this person, with her sweetest smile, "what would you all do if you had not us to take back your messages to England? We are to teach Bell's little girl to say Idaho. And when Christmas comes, we shall think of you at a particular hour-oh, by-the-way, we have never yet fixed the exact difference of time between Surrey and Idaho—”

"We will do that before you leave, madame," says the lieutenant, "but I am sure we will think of you a good many times before Christmas comes. And when Mr. Balfour and I have our bears and buffaloes, and elephants, and all these things, we will see whether we cannot get something sent you in ice for your Chrismas party. And you will drink our good health, madame, will you not? And perhaps, if you are very kind, you might send us one bottle of very good Rhine wine, and we will drink your health too. Nee! I meant two bottles, for the

four of us—”

"I think we shall be able to manage that," says she; and visions of real Schloss Johannisberg, each bottle swathed in printed and signed guarantees of genuineness, no doubt began to dance before her nimble brain.

But at this moment a cold breeze came rushing down the narrow gorge; and almost at the same instant we saw the edge of a heavy cloud come lowering over the very highest peak of the mountains. Some little familiarity with the pranks of the weather in the Western Highlands suggested that, having no water-proofs, and no shelter being near, we had better make down the valley again in the direction of Idaho; and this we set about doing. The hot afternoon had grown suddenly chill. A cold wind whistled through the trembling leaves of the cottonwoods. The mountains were shadowed, and by the time we reached Idaho again it seemed as if the night had already come down. The women in their thin dresses, were glad to get in-doors.

"But it is this very thing," the lieutenant cried-for he was anxious that his wife should regard her new home favourably—“ that makes these places in the Rocky Mountains so wholesome-so healthful, I mean. I have heard of it from many people, who say here is the best sleeping-place in the world. It is no matter how warm it is in the day, it is

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