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Bell," says our gentle Queen T-, looking rather wistfully along the pale rampart of the Rocky Mountains, "these are the walls of your future home. Will you go up to the top of an evening and wave a handkerchief to us? And we will try to answer you from Mickleham Downs."

"On Christmas night we will send you many a message," said Bell, looking down. "And my husband and myself," said Lady Sylvia, quite simply, "you will let us join in that too."

"But do you expect to be out here till Christmas?" said Bell, with well-affected surprise.

"I don't think my husband would come to America," said Lady Sylvia, in the most matter-of-fact way, "after what has happened, unless he meant to stop."

"Oh, if you could only be near us!" cried Bell; but she dared not say more.

"That would be very pleasant," Lady Sylvia answered, with a smile; "but of course I don't know what my husband's plans are. We shall know our way more clearly when he comes to Idaho. It will seem so strange to sit down and shape one's life anew; but I suppose a good many people have got to do that."

By this time the lieutenant had secured a carriage which was standing at the end of the platform, along with a pony for himself.

"Now, Mrs. Von Rosen," said he, "air you ready? Guess you've come up from the ranch to have a frolic? Got your dollars ready for the gambling saloons ?"

"And if I have," said she, boldly, "they are licensed by the government. Why should I not amuse myself in these places ?"

"Madame," replied her husband, sternly, "the Puritan nation into which you have married permits of no such vices. Cheyenne must follow Homburg, Wiesbaden, BadenBaden-"

"No doubt," said the sharp-tongued of our women-folk, who invariably comes to the assistance of her friend-" no doubt that will follow when your pious emperor has annexed the State."

"I beg your pardon, madame," says the lieutenant, politely, "but Wyoming is not a State; it is only a Territory.'

"I don't suppose it would matter," she retorts, carelessly, "if the Hohenzollerns could get their hands on it anyhow. But never mind. Come along, Bell, and let us see what sort of neighbours you are likely to have."

They were no doubt rather rough-looking fellows, those gentlemen who lounged about the doors of the drinking saloons; but there were more picturesque figures visible in the open thoroughfares riding along on stalwart little ponies, the horsemen bronzed of face, clad mostly in buckskin, and with a good deal of ornament about their saddle and stirrups. As for Cheyenne itself, there was certainly nothing about its outward appearance to entitle any one to call it "Hell on Wheels." Its flat rectangular streets were rather dismal in appearance; there seemed to be little doing even in the drinking saloons. But brisker times, we were assured, were at hand. The rumours about the gold to be had in the Black Hills would draw to this point the adventurers of many lands, as free with their money as with their language. Here they would fit themselves out with the waggons and weapons necessary for the journey up to the Black Hills; here they would return the Sioux permitting-to revel in the delights of keno, and poker, and Bourbon whiskey. Cheyenne would return to its pristine glory, when life-so long as you could cling on to it-was a brisk and exciting business. Certainly the Cheyenne we saw was far from being an exciting place. It was in vain that we implored our Bell to step down and bowie-knife somebody, or do something to let us understand what Cheyenne was in happier times. There was not a single corpse lying at any of the saloon doors,

less than 8,000 or 10,000, because the young men of the Red Cloud and Spotted Tail people could easily be got to join the Sioux ; and if they are to die, why should they not do some splendid thing?"

"Well, Sir," said our friend, patting the neck of one of his horses, as the ladies were getting into the carriage, "that would be fine -that would be striking in a book or a play. But you don't know the Indians. The Indians are cowards, Sir, take my word for it; and they don't fight except for plunder. They are revengeful-oh yes-and malicious as snakes; but they won't kill a man unless they could get his rifle, or his oxen or something. The young men are different sometimes; they want scalps to make them big in the eyes of the gals; but you wouldn't find a whole tribe of Indians flinging their lives away just to make a fuss in the New York papers."

At this point we started off again across the plains; and the discussion was adjourned, as the Irish magistrate said, sine die until the evening. Only Bell was anxious to be assured that if Sitting Bull and his merry men should meditate one grand and final act of revenge, they would not make their way down to the plains of Colorado and take up their abode there; and she was greatly comforted when she heard that the chief trouble of the government was that it could not get the Indians to forsake their native hills in the north and go down to the Indian Territory in the south.

"I think, Mrs. Von Rosen," said Lady Sylvia, "that you will have some romantic stories to tell your children when you return to England. You would feel very proud if you compelled the Indians to address you as brave squaw ! brave squaw!'"

"I can assure you I am not at all anxious to become a heroine," our Bell said, seriously; no doubt remembering that romantic incidents have sometimes a knack of leaving children motherless.

And now "the Rockies" had grown quite dramatic in their intensity of plum-colour, and there were flashing shots of crimson fire high over the dusky peaks. But as we were driving eastward, we saw even more beautiful colours on the other horizon; for there were huge soft masses of colour that had their high ridges of snow touched with a pale saffron as the light went down. And then, when the sun had really sunk, we found that

strange phenomenon again appear along the eastern horizon--a band of dull dead blue lying close to the land, where no clouds were, and fading into a warm crimson above. Had this belt of coloured shadow been a belt of mountains, we should have estimated them to be about 5,000 feet above the level of these plains, which are themselves 5,000 or 6,000 feet above the level of the sea; and a strange thing was that this dusky blue and the crimson above remained well into the twilight, when all the world around us was growing dark. It was in this wan twilight that we drove out to a lake which will, no doubt, form an ornamental feature in a big park when the Black Hills miners, gorged with wealth, come back to make Cheyenne a great city. The chief attraction of the lake, as we saw it, was the presence of a considerable number of wildduck on the surface; but we did not stay long to look at them, for the reason that there were several boats out after them; and the tiny jets of pink fire that were from time to time visible in the silvery twilight showed that the occupants of the boats were firing pretty much at random. As we did not wish to have a charge of No. 5 shot for supper, we drove off, and eventually were landed at the railway inn at Cheyenne.

We were quite conscious of having done an injustice to "Hell on Wheels" in taking only this cursory glance at so famous a place; but then we knew that all our letters-and perhaps telegrams-were now at Idaho, and we wished to get on as soon as possible. But as the present writer was unanimously requested by the party to pay a tribute of gratitude to the clean and comfortable little inn at the station, he must now do so; only he must also confess that he was bribed, for the good-natured landlord was pleased, as we sat at supper, to send in to us, with his compliments, a bottle of real French Champagne, Good actions should never go unrewarded; and so the gentle reader is most earnestly entreated, the first time he goes to Cheyenne

in fact, he is entreated to go to Cheyenne anyhow-to stay at this inn and give large orders. Moreover, the present writer, not wishing to have his conduct in this particular regarded as being too mercenary, would wish to explain that the bottle of Champagne in question was, as we subsequently discovered, charged for in the bill, and honestly paid for too; but he can not allow the

landlord to be deprived of all credit for his hospitable intentions merely on account of an error on the part of the clerk. We drank to his health then, and we will do so now. Here is to your health, Mr.-; and to yours, you kind friend, who showed us the non-fortified Fort Russell; and to yours, you young Canadian gentleman, who told us those sad stories about Denver; and we hereby invoke a malison on the Grand Central Hotel of that city, on account of its cockroaches, and its vinous decoctions, and its incivility; but all this is highly improper, and premature, and a breach of confidence. We did indeed spend a pleasant evening that night at Cheyenne; for we had ordered for our banquet all the strangest dishes on the bill of fare, just to give our friends a notion of the sort of food they would have to encounter during their stay in the West. And then these steaks of antelope and mountain sheep and black-tailed deer derived a certain romance from the presence, on the walls of the room, of splendid heads and antlers, until it appeared to us that we must be mighty hunters just sitting down to supper, with the trophies won by our own sword and spear hung up around us. And then our Prussian strategist-who had acquired such a vast and intimate acquaintance with the Indians from his conversation with the Omaha idiot-proceeded to explain to us his plan of an Indian campaign; which showed that he was quite fitted to take the command of all the red men in Dakota. We were treated to a dose of history, too; to show that, in desperation, the Indians have often risen to commit a general massacre, apparently with no ulterior motive whatever. And of course, when Sitting Bull had swept down on Cheyenne and drunk its taverns dry, and when he had swept down on Denver and filled his pockets--if any-with sham French jewelry, surely he would come up to Idaho to pay a certain young lady a friendly call?

"Bell," said her husband, "you shall have a laurel wreath ready, and you will have all the neighbours trained and ready, and when the great chief approaches, you will all burst out with Heil dir im Siegerkranz !'"'

"In the mean time," said Bell, sedately, "if we are to catch the train for Denver at five in the morning, we had better get to bed."

FIV

CHAPTER XLIX.

IN SOCIETY.

IVE in the morning-pitch darkness all around the station-a clear starlit sky the flashing belt and sword of Orion almost right overhead. We had our breakfast of bread and apples in the great empty saloon; then we went out on to the platform, wondering when the Cyclops eye of the train would come flaring through the dark. For now we were within a few hours' journey of the point to which those messages were to be directed which would finally set at rest one or two grave problems; and there was a good deal of nervousness visible among our women-folk when we touched on these probabilities. But Lady Sylvia showed no nervousness at all. She was eager, buoyant, confident. She was clearly not afraid of any telegram or letter that might be awaiting her at Denver. Nay, when her friends, shivering in the cold and darkness of the early morning, were complaining of the railway arrangements that compelled us to get up at such an hour, she made light of the matter, and showed how, as we went south, we should have the beautiful spectacle of the sunrise breaking on the Rocky Mountains.

At length the train came along, and we got into the warm carriage, in which the conductor was engaged in cramming a blazing stove with still further blocks of wood. Very soon we were away from the scattered shanties of Cheyenne, out on the lone prairieland that was to be our Bell's future home. And as we sat and silently looked out of the windows, watching a pale glow arise in the east, and trying to make out something on the dark plains below, suddenly we caught sight of some flashing lights of red and yellow. These were the breakfast fires of some trav ellers camping out-probably miners or traders making for the Black Hills with a train of waggons and oxen. The light in the east increased; and then we saw all along the western horizon the great wall of the Rocky Mountains become visible in a stream of colour-the peaks the faintest rose, the shadowy bulk below a light, transparent, beautiful blue. The morning came on apace; the silvery grays of the east yielding to a glowing saffron. There seemed to be no mists lying on these high plains, for, as the sun rose, we could see an immense distance

over the yellow prairie-land. And the first objects we perceived in this lonely desert of grass were a number of antelope quietly graz. ing within rifle range of the railway line, taking no heed whatever, though occasionally one of the more timid would trot off on its spider-like legs to a safer distance. Bell began to laugh. She saw the misery of her husband's face.

“Ah, well," said he, with a sigh, “I suppose if the train were to stop, and you went down with a gun, they would be away like lightning. But a time will come; and your husband, Lady Sylvia, will be with me to help me, I hope.'

There was certainly no misery on Lady Sylvia's face, now that the brilliant light of the new day filled the carriage. Was this the pale sad soul who had come away from England with us, out of sorts with the world, and almost aweary of her life? There was a colour in her cheeks that nearly rivaled Bell's apple-blossom tints. There was an unusual gladness in her eyes this morning that we could not at first account for; but she let the secret out: she had been making elaborate calculations. The telegram she received at Omaha from Queenstown had been waiting for her two days before she got it. Then, taking into account the number of days we staid at Omaha and the leisurely fashion in which we had come across the plains, there was at least a chance-so she proved to herself—that her husband might at that very moment be landing at one of the New York wharves. It all depended on the steamer. Who knew any thing about that steamer? Notoriously it belonged to the fastest of all the lines. Was it possible, then, that as we were chatting and laughing in this railway carriage on the Colorado prairies, Balfour might be on the same continent with us? You could almost have imagined that his stepping ashore had communicated some strange magnetic thrill to his wife's heart.

"We are getting near to Greeley now," said Queen T― to her friend Bell, looking rather eagerly out of the window.

"Yes," said the practical lieutenant, "and we shall have twenty minutes there for a real breakfast. An apple and a bit of bread is not enough, if you are travelling in Colorado air"

But I do not think it was altogether the breakfast-though that, as it turned out was

excellent-that led us to look out with unusual interest for this little township set far among the Western plains; there were other reasons which need not be mentioned here. And, indeed, we have the most pleasant memories of Greeley, as it shone there in the early sunlight. We walked up the broad main thoroughfare, with its twin rows of cottonwood trees; and no doubt the empty street gained something from the fact that the end of it seemed closed in by the pale blue line of the Rocky Mountains, the peaks here and there glittering with snow. A bright, clean, thriving-looking place, with its handsome red brick school-house and its capacious white church; while many of the shanties about had pleasant little gardens attached, watered by small irrigation canals from the Cache-la-poudre River. As we were passing one of those tiny streams, a great heron rose slowly into the air, his heavy wings flapping, his legs hanging down; but a large hawk, crossing a field beyond, took no notice of him; and we were disappointed of a bit of extempore falconry. We had only a look at the public park, which is as yet mostly a wilderness of underwood, and a glimpse at the pretty villas beyond; in fact, our explorations nearly lost us our train. As we think of Greeley now-here, in England, in the depth of winter-it shines for us still in the light of the summer morning, and the trees and fields are green around it, and the mountains are blue under the blue of the sky. May it shine and flourish forever!

It is most unfair of the Americans to speak slightingly of Denver. It is a highly respectable city. We were quite astounded, on our first entrance, by the number of people who appeared in black coats and tall hats; and the longer we staid in the place, the more we were impressed by the fashion in which the Denverites had removed the old stains from their reputation by building churches. They have advanced much farther in the paths of civilization than the slowmoving cities of the East. In New York or Boston hotels the servants merely claim a free-and-easy equality with the guests; in Denver they have got far beyond that. The wines are such triumphs of skilful invention as no city in the world can produce. And then, when one goes into the streets (to escape from the beetles in one's bedroom), the eye is charmed by the variety of nationalities every where visible A smart Mexi