"That's so," said the Deacon; "and if I've heard you say so once, Elizy, I've heard you say it a thousand times; I don't know how 'tis, but it does seem as if you had to have somethin' in shape o' butter, if it's ever so bad, to make a meal go down."

"I don't see how bad butter helps to make a meal go down," said Rob. "It like to have made mine come up just now."

"Rob, Rob!" said his mother, reprovingly; "you forget that we are at supper."

"Excuse me, mamma," said Rob, penitently; "but it was true."

CHAPTER VI

LIFE AT GARLAND'S

This was the first night of the Marches and Plummers in their strange new home in Colorado. When they waked up the next morning, Mr. March and Deacon Plummer rolled up in buffalo robes on the hay in the barn, Mrs. March and Nelly in one bed in one little bedroom, Mrs. Plummer in another opening out of it, and Rob on an old black leather sofa in the kitchen, they could hardly believe their eyes as they looked around them. They all got up very early, and now their new life had begun in good earnest. Immediately after breakfast, Mr. March drove away in the big wagon with Fox and Pumpkinseed. He would not tell his wife where he was going, nor take any one with him. The truth was, that in the night Mr. March had taken two resolutions: one was that he would get a servant for Mrs. March; the other was that he would buy furniture enough to make the house pleasant and comfortable, and china enough to make their table look a little like their old home table. But he knew if he told Mrs. March what he meant to do, she would think they ought not to spend the money. All their own pretty china which they had used at home, she had packed up and left behind them, saying: "We shall not want any thing of that kind in Colorado." Mrs. March did not care about such things half so much as Mr. March and Nelly did; that is, she could do without them more easily. She liked pretty things very much, but she could do without them very well if it were necessary. She watched Mr. March driving off down the road this morning with an uneasy feeling.

"I don't know what Mr. March's got in his head," she said to Mrs. Plummer; "but I think he is going to do something rash. He looks as children do when they are in some secret mischief."

"Why, what could it be?" said good Mrs. Plummer. "I don't see what there is for him to do."

"Well, we shall see," said Mrs. March. "I wish I'd made him take me along."

"Made him!" exclaimed Mrs. Plummer. "Can you make him do any thing he's sot not to? I hain't never been able to do that with Mr. Plummer, not once in all the thirty years I've lived with him. It's always seemed to me that men was the obstinatest critters made, even the best on 'em; an' I'm sure Mr. Plummer's as good a man's ever was born; but I don't no more think o' movin' him if his mind's made up, than I should think o' movin' that rock up there," pointing to a huge rock which was at the top of one of the hills to the southwest of the house.

The day flew by quickly in putting their new home in order. Both Mrs. March and Mrs. Plummer worked very hard, and Rob and Nelly helped them. They swept and washed floors; they washed windows; they washed even the chairs and tables,—which sadly needed it, it must be owned. Rob and Nelly enjoyed it all as a frolic.

"This is like last Christmas, when Sarah was drunk: isn't it, mamma?" said Rob. "It's real fun."

"Don't you wish Sarah was here to help you, mamma?" said Nelly.

"No, dear," replied Mrs. March, "I do not. I would rather do all the work ourselves, and save the money."

"Are we very, very, very poor, mamma?" said Nelly, with a distressed face.

"Oh, no, dear! not so bad as that," laughed Mrs. March; "but papa's salary has all stopped now, as I explained to you; and that was the greater part of our income: and, till we have more money coming in regularly from something out here, we must spend just as little as possible."

Just before dinner, Rob came in with a big armful of kindling-wood, and on the top of the wood he carried a long piece of a beautiful green vine.

"Oh, Rob, Rob, let me see that! Where did you find it?" said his mother.

"Upon the hills, mamma, back of the saw-mill. There's oceans of it up there."

"There is oceans, Rob?" said his mother.

"There are oceans, then! You knew what I meant. It's just like a carpet; and you can pull up great, long pieces of it: it comes up just as easy as any thing."

Mrs. March turned the vine over and over in her hands. It had a small glossy leaf, like the leaf of the box. Some of the long, slender tendrils of it were bright red.

"The leaf is so thick I think it would keep a long time," said Mrs. March. "I wish you and Nelly would bring me several armfuls of it. I'll tack it up all round the room: the walls won't look so bare, then."

"Oh, goody!" said the children; "that's just like Christmas." And they ran off as fast as they could go. In an hour they had heaped the whole floor with piles of the vine. The more they brought, the more beautiful it looked: the leaves shone like satin, and there were great mats of it nearly two yards long. Mrs. March had never seen it before, and did not know its name. Afterward she found out that it was the kinnikinnick vine, and that the Indians used it to smoke in their pipes. Some of the branches had beautiful little red berries like wintergreen berries on them. Nelly sorted these all out by themselves; then Mrs. March stood up on a chair, and some of the time on a table, and nailed a thick border of these vines all round the top of the room; then she took the branches which had red berries on them; and, wherever there was an upright beam in the wall, she nailed on one of these boughs with the red berries and let it hang down just as it would. Then she trimmed the fireplace and the door and the windows. It took her about two hours to do it. When it was all done, you would hardly have known the room. It looked lovely: the yellow pine boards looked much prettier with the green of the vines than any paper in the world could have looked. Rob and Nelly fairly danced with delight.

"Oh, mamma! mamma! it's prettier than any Christmas we ever had: isn't it?"

"Yes," said Mrs. March; "if the vines will only last, it is all we need to keep our walls pretty till summer time."

"Well, I never!" said Zeb, who came in at that moment. "If wimmen folks don't beat all! Why, mum, ye look's if you was goin' to have an ice-cream festival."

Zeb's only experience of rooms decorated with green vines had been when he had attended ice-cream festivals, given by churches to raise money.

"Well, we'll have one some day, Zeb," said Mrs. March, laughing; "and we won't charge you any thing. I can make very good ice-cream."

"Oh, to-night! to-night! mamma," exclaimed the children.

"Can't to-night," Mrs. March said; "for the freezer's in the big box with all the other kitchen things."

"I might make some crullers," said Mrs. Plummer.

"Do! do! do!" cried Rob. "Mrs. Plummer's famous for crullers!" And he ran off, singing—

at the top of his lungs.

It was nearly dark before Mr. March returned. Rob was the first to spy him.

"Why, there's Pumpkinseed!" he exclaimed. "And what in the world's papa got in the wagon?" And he ran down the road to meet him. All the others ran too. The wagon did indeed present a very singular appearance. Four red wooden legs stuck far out in front; Mr. March was wedged in between them; high above his head bulged out a great roll of bolsters and pillows; and as far as you could see, away back in the wagon, there seemed to be nothing but bed-ticking, and legs of furniture.

"Mercy on us!" exclaimed Mrs. March; "What did I tell you, Mrs. Plummer? That's what he went off for,—to buy furniture. Mr. March always must have things just right. Dear me! I wish he hadn't done it."

But, as I told you long ago, it was Mrs. March's way always to make the best of what couldn't be helped. So she went forward to welcome her husband as pleasantly as if she were delighted to see all this new furniture.

"Ah, Robert," she said, "now I know why you wouldn't take me. You wanted to surprise us all."

"Yes," said Mr. March, his face beaming all over with satisfaction, "I didn't mean you should spend another night in such a desolate hole. There's another wagon load behind."

At this Mrs. March could not help groaning.

"Oh, Robert! Robert!" she said, "what did you buy so much for?"

"Oh, part of the other load is feed for the cattle," said Mr. March. "That I'm responsible to Deacon Plummer for. Those were his orders."

When the two wagons were unloaded, the space in front of the little house looked like an auction. Rob and Nelly ran from one thing to another, exclaiming and shouting. Mr. March had indeed furnished the whole house. He had bought two pretty little single bedsteads for Rob and Nelly, and a fine large bedstead for himself and Mrs. March; he had bought mattresses and pillows and bolsters and blankets; a whole piece of pretty rag-carpet, in gray and red stripes; two large rocking-chairs with arms, two without, and two small low chairs; a work-table with drawers, two bureaus, a wardrobe, and two sets of book-shelves to hang on the walls; two student lamps, and a table with leaves that could open out. Then he had bought a whole piece of pretty chintz in stripes of black and green.

"There, wife," he said, as he showed her this, last of all, "now we can make a decent little home out of it, after a few days."

As he spoke, he stepped into the kitchen: he started back with surprise.

"Why, how perfectly lovely!" he exclaimed; "where did you get it? And what is it? I never saw a place so transformed. Why, it looks even elegant."

"I thought you would like it," said Mrs. March, much pleased. "Perhaps if you had seen it so before you went away, you wouldn't have bought so many new things."

"Why, Sarah, I haven't bought a thing that wasn't absolutely necessary," said Mr. March.

"They are all very nice, dear," replied Mrs. March; "and of course we shall be much more comfortable with them. It was very kind of you. But haven't you spent a great deal of money?" she asked anxiously.

"Oh, no!" said Mr. March, "I think not; though things are much higher here than at home. I didn't get the bills; but I don't believe it's over two hundred dollars."

This seemed a great deal to Mrs. March; but she said no more. And the next day, when all the things were arranged, a square of the rag-carpet laid on the floor, and the pretty chintz curtains at the window, she could not help admitting to herself that life looked much easier and pleasanter than it had before.

"And I ought to be thankful that he did not buy more," she thought; "and that he could not find a servant to bring out here."

On inquiring after servants, Mr. March had found that it was almost impossible to get any good ones; and their wages were so high, he had at once given up all idea of hiring one now.

"I'll let you try it, Sarah, for the present," he said, "but, if I see you in the least breaking down, I shall have a servant, if I have to send home for one."

"I won't break down," said Mrs. March; "I never felt so well in my life. I am never tired. I suppose it is the air."

"Yes," said Mr. March; "it must be. I, too, feel like another man. I can draw such full, long breaths; I shouldn't know there was such a thing as asthma in the world."

As day after day went on, they all came to like their new home better and better. The little room which had been a lumber room was made into a sitting-room, and trimmed all round with the kinnikinnick vines; the big table with leaves stood in the centre, and the book-shelves hung on the walls. Zeb and Deacon Plummer built pine shelves across one end of the room, way to the top; these were filled with Mr. March's books. There were two small school-desks by the east window; and at these Rob and Nelly sat for two hours every morning, and studied and recited their lessons to Mr. March. In the afternoon, they played out of doors; they climbed the hills and the rocks; and, at four o'clock, they went after the cows. This was something they were never tired of, because they never knew just where they should find the cows: they rambled into so many little nooks and corners among the hills; but three of the cows had bells on their necks, and the rest never went far from them. Watch always went with Rob and Nelly, and he seemed to have a wonderful instinct to tell where to look for a cow. Whenever it stormed too much for the children to be out, Zeb went. Sometimes Watch went all alone. He could bring the cows home as well as anybody. But Nelly and Rob never liked to miss it. It was the great pleasure of their day; and the out-door air and the exercise were making them brown and strong. They looked like little Italian peasant children: wherever they went they sang; up hill and down, and on the tops of the highest rocks, their merry voices rang out. Felix—that Frenchman I told you about that they saw in the cars, the one who was servant to the English gentleman—had taught Rob how to make the cry which the Swiss hunters make in the Alps. It is called the "Jodel"—and it sounds very fine among high hill-tops. It is something like this:—

"Yo-ho! yo-ho! yo-ho!" The syllables are pronounced one after the other just as fast as you can, in a high shrill tone, and there is a sort of tune to it which I could not describe; but perhaps you know some traveller who has been in Switzerland, who can describe it to you. Rob used to "jodel" beautifully; and many a time when he was on a high rock, way up above the road, and saw people riding or driving below him, he would ring out such a "jodel," that the people would stop and look up amazed. They could not believe they were in America. Rob was fast growing as strong and well as Nelly. He never had sore throats here: and Mr. and Mrs. March often said that they would be glad they had come to Colorado, if it were for nothing except that it had made Rob so well. As he grew stronger, he grew to be a much better boy. He was not selfish nor cross as he used to be at home; and he was as full of fun as a squirrel, all day long. One thing he very much enjoyed doing, was taking Fox and Pumpkinseed up to the tops of the high hills to graze. The best grass grew very high up on the hills; but neither Fox nor Pumpkinseed had ever been used to such steep hills, and they both hated to climb them. Deacon Plummer was very droll about it. "Don't blame 'em," said he, "don't blame 'em a mite. Who'd want to be for ever climbing up garret to get a mouthful of something to eat?" However, since the food was chiefly "up garret," as the Deacon called it, "up garret" the horses must go; and it was somebody's duty every morning to lead them up. Often, in the course of the day, they would ramble slowly down: then they would have to be taken up again; and Rob was always on the lookout for a chance to do this. He always took Fox; he was easier to lead than Pumpkinseed. You had to lead only one: the other would follow; and it was a funny sight to see Rob way up on the steep hill, tugging away at Fox's halter, and Fox half holding back, half going along, and Pumpkinseed behind, following on slowly with a most disgusted expression, every now and then stopping short and looking up at Rob and Fox, as much as to say, "Oh, dear! why will you drag us up this horrible hill?"

The hill opposite the house was so high that when Rob was at the very top of it with the horses, he didn't look bigger than a "Hop-o'-my-thumb," and the horses looked like goats. After he got them fairly up, and saw them grazing contentedly, Rob would run down the hill at full speed. At first he got many a tumble flat on his nose doing this; but after a while he learned how to slant his body backwards, and then he did not tumble.

But while Rob and Nelly were growing well and strong, and having such a good time that they never wanted to go back to Mayfield, I am sorry to say that the grown people were not so contented. In the first place, good old Mrs. Plummer could not sleep. Her cough was all gone; and if she could only have slept, she would have been as well as anybody; but her heart beat too fast all the time, and kept her awake at night. She did not know that she had any trouble with her heart when she was at home; and nobody had told them that people with heart-trouble could not live in Colorado: but that is the case; the air which is so pure and dry is also so light that it makes your pulse beat a good many times more a minute, and it takes a good strong heart to bear this. You know your heart is nothing but a pump that pumps blood to go through your veins, just as water goes through pipes all over a house; and the pump has to be very strong to pump so many strokes a minute as it does in Colorado. So poor Mrs. Plummer, instead of growing better, was growing worse; and this made them all unhappy.

Then Deacon Plummer and Mr. March had to acknowledge that they were paying out more money than they took in, and this worried them both.

"We've got to get out on't somehow, that's clear and sartin," said the Deacon. "It won't take very long at this rate to clear us both out. I hate to give up. I'm sure there must be better places in the country somewhere for stock raisin' than this is; but we won't stir till warm weather sets in. Then we'll look round."

The last week in April and the first in May were hard weeks. Snow-storm after snow-storm fell. At one time, all travel through the Pass was cut off for two days. The snow lay in great drifts in the narrowest places. In such weather as this, all the cattle had to be kept in the barns and yards, and fed; hay was very dear; and as Deacon Plummer said, "It don't take a critter very long to eat his own head off, and after it's eaten it off six times over, its head's on all the same for you to keep a feedin'."

When June came in, matters brightened. The cows had plenty of grass, gave good milk, and Mrs. March and Mrs. Plummer made a good many pounds of butter each week, which they sold at Manitou without difficulty. Here at last was a regular source of income; but it was small: "a mere drop in the bucket," Mrs. March said when she was talking over matters with Mrs. Plummer. I must tell you how this butter was made, because it was such a pleasure to Rob and Nelly to watch it. It was made in a little shed which joined on to the old saw-mill, and the old saw-mill wheel did the churning. Wasn't that a funny way? We must give Zeb the credit of this. He was turning the grindstone one day for Deacon Plummer to sharpen up his axes. It is very hard work to turn a grindstone, and Zeb was very tired before the axes were half ground. Suddenly the thought popped into his head, "Why shouldn't I make that old water-wheel turn this grindstone for us?" After dinner he went up to the saw-mill and looked at it. There was the old wooden wheel as good as ever; the gate which had shut the water off and let it on was gone; "but that's easy fixed," said Zeb, and to work he went; and before sundown, he had the water-wheel bobbing round again as fast as need be. The next day he took the grindstone and sunk it in between two old timbers in a broken place in the floor, just back of the wheel; then he put a strap round the grindstone and fastened it to the water-wheel; then he pulled up the little gate, and let the water in the water-wheel. Hurrah! round went the water-wheel, and round went the grindstone keeping exact pace with it! Zeb clapped his knee, which was the same thing as if he had patted himself on the shoulder. "Good for you, Abe Mack!" he said. Then he looked around frightened, to see if anybody had heard him. No one was near. He drew a long breath. "Lord!" he said; "to think o' my saying that name out loud after all this time!" and he wiped his forehead with the back of his hand. "I'd better be more keerful than that," he said. "I'll get tracked yet, if I don't look out." Two years before, in a fight in a mining town a great many miles north of his present home, Zeb had had the misfortune to kill a man. He never intended to do such a thing. He really drew his pistol in self-defence; but he could not prove this, and he had fled for his life, and had been ever since living hidden away on this lonely farm in the mountains. He had intended to go still farther away where there would be no possibility of his ever being seen by any of the men who had known him before, but he had fallen so in love with these hills he could not tear himself away from them. But he had never told his true name to any one, and when he pronounced it now the sound of it frightened him almost as if it had been a sheriff who was calling him by it.

After dinner, Zeb invited the whole family out to see his new water-works. They all looked on with interest and pleasure. Mr. March had often looked at the old mill and wished he had money enough to put it in order.

"Well done, Zeb!" he said. "You've turned the old thing to some account, haven't you? That's a capital idea; we'll grind knives and axes now for anybody who comes along."

"Zeb," said Mrs. March, "can't you make it churn the butter for you?"

Zeb was struck by the idea.

"Lor, ma'am," he said; "I never heard o' such a thing! but I don't know why not. I'll try it, sure's my name's—" he stopped short, and gasped out "Zebulon Craig."

No one observed his agitation. They were all too busy watching the grindstone and water-wheel. The next day and the next, Zeb was seen steadily at work in the saw-mill. He would not let the children stay with him.

"Run away! run away!" he said. "I've got a job o' thinkin' to do: can't think with you youngsters a lookin' on."

Rob and Nelly were almost beside themselves with curiosity.

"Zeb's making a churn to go by water like the grindstone: I know he is," said Rob. "It's real mean for him not to let us see."

"But, Rob," said the wise Nelly, "he says he can't think if we're round. He'll show it to us's soon's it's done."

"I don't care," said Rob; "I want to see how he does it;" and Rob hovered round the mill perpetually, much to Zeb's vexation.

Late in the second afternoon, Zeb called out:—

"Rob, go fetch me the churn, will you?"

Rob was only too happy to be admitted into the partnership on any terms. The churn was quite heavy, but he rolled it and tugged it to the shed-door. Zeb lifted it over the threshold: and then Rob saw that there was a long slender beam fastened to the water-wheel, and reaching half way across the wall of the shed; an upright beam was fastened to this, a hole was cut in the shed wall, and another beam run through this hole, and fastened to the upright beam on the other side. When the water-wheel turned round and round, it made this upright beam go up and down. Zeb took the dasher of the churn and fastened it to this beam: up and down, up and down it went, faster than anybody could churn.

"Tain't quite long enough," said Zeb. "We'll have to stand the churn on something." Then he ran back to the house and asked Mrs. Plummer for some cream. She gave him about three gallons; he put it into the churn, raised the churn a little higher, and set the machinery in motion. In about ten minutes he looked in.

"It's comin'! it's comin'!" he cried. "Run, call all the folks, Rob."

Rob ran, and in a few minutes the whole family were looking on at this new mode of churning. It worked beautifully; in fifteen minutes more the butter was made.

"There!" said Zeb, as he drew up the dasher with great solid lumps of butter sticking to it. "If that ain't the easiest churned three gallons o' cream ever I see!"

"Yes, indeed, Zeb," said Mrs. March, "it is. We sha'n't dread churning-day any more."

Mr. March examined the machinery curiously. "Zeb," he said, "if we had two good iron wheels we could make shingles here, couldn't we? I believe it would pay to rig the old place up again."

"Yes, sir," said Zeb. "There's nothin' ye can't make with such a stream o' water's that if ye've got the machinery to put it to. It's only the machinery that's wantin'. We've got water power enough here to run a factory."

You would not have thought so to look at it; the water did not come right out of the brook; it came through a wooden pipe, high up on wooden posts. It was taken out of the brook a mile or two farther up the Pass, where the ground was a great deal higher than it was here at the mill. So it came running all the way down through this pipe, high up above the brook, and when it was let out it fell with great force. The pipe was quite old now, and it leaked in many places; in one place there was such a big leak it made a little waterfall; this water dripping and falling into the brook beneath made it sound like a shower, and all the bushes and green things along the edges of the brook were dripping wet all the time. There was a big pile of the old sawdust on the edge of the brook; this was of a bright yellow color: the old saw-mill had fallen so into decay that three sides of it were open, and it looked hardly safe to go into it. You had to step carefully from one beam to another: there was not much of the floor left. But it was a lovely, cool, shady place, and almost every day some of the teamsters who were driving heavy teams through the Pass would stop here to take their lunch at noon: often Rob and Nelly would go out and talk with them, and carry them milk to drink. Zeb kept out of sight at such times. He was always in fear of being seen by somebody who had known him in the northern country.

As the summer came on, all sorts of beautiful flowers appeared along the edges of the brook, in the open clearings, and even in the crevices of the rocks. Nelly gathered great bunches of them every morning. She loved flowers almost as well as she loved mountains. She used to go out late in the afternoon and gather a huge basketful of all the kinds she could find,—red and white, and yellow and blue,—then she would set the basket in the brook and let the water run through it all night, keeping the stems of the flowers very wet. In the morning they would look as fresh as if she had just picked them. Remember this, all of you little children who love flowers and like to pick them. If you pick them in the morning, they will wither and never revive perfectly, no matter how much water you put them in. Pick them at sundown, and leave them in a great tub full of water out of doors all night, and in the morning you can arrange them in bouquets, and they will keep twice as long as they would if you had not left them out of doors all night. Nelly used to sit on the ground in the open space west of the saw-mill and arrange her bouquets; sometimes she would tie up as many as eight or ten in one morning, and sometimes travellers driving past would call to her and ask her to sell them: but Nelly would not sell them; she always gave them away to anybody who loved flowers. Rob thought she was very foolish. "Nell, why didn't you take the money?" he would say. "It's just the same to sell flowers as milk: isn't it?"

"No," said Nelly, "I don't think it is. The flowers are not ours."

"Whose are they?" exclaimed Rob.

"God's," said Nelly, soberly. Rob could not appreciate Nelly's feeling.

"Well, what makes you steal 'em, then?" he asked, in a satirical tone.

"God likes to have us pick them: I know he does," said Nelly, earnestly. "He gives them all to us for every summer as long as we live."

"Oh, pshaw, Nell!" said Rob. "He don't do any such thing. They just grow: that's all."

"Well, papa says that God makes them grow on purpose for us to see how pretty they are. They aren't of any other use: they aren't the same as potatoes. And don't you know the little verse,—

I'm always thinking of that. 'Twould be horrid here if we didn't have any thing but things to eat."

CHAPTER VII

A HUNT FOR A SILVER MINE

One morning, early in June, Nelly was sitting out by the old mill, with her lap full of blue anemones and white daisies: the anemones were hardly out of their gray cloaks. The anemones in Colorado come up out of the ground like crocuses; the buds are rolled up tight in the loveliest little furry coverings almost like chinchilla fur. I think this is to keep them warm, because they come very early in the spring, and often there are cold storms after they arrive, and the poor little anemones are all covered up in snow.

Nelly heard steps and voices and the trampling of hoofs. She sprang up, and saw that a large blue wagon, drawn by eight mules, had just turned in from the road, towards the brook, and the driver was making ready to camp. He came towards Nelly, and said, very pleasantly:—

"Little girl, do your folks live in yonder?" pointing to the house.

"Yes, sir," said Nelly.

"Do they ever keep folks?"

"What, sir?" said Nelly.

"Do they ever keep folks,—keep 'em to board?"

"Oh, no! never," replied Nelly.

The man looked disappointed. "Well," he said, "I've got to lie by here a day or two, anyhow. I was in hopes I could get took in. I'm clean beat out; but I can sleep in the wagon."

"My mamma will be glad to do all she can for you if you're sick, I'm sure," said Nelly; "but we haven't any spare room in our house."

The driver looked at Nelly again. He had once been a coachman in a gentleman's family at the East, and he knew by Nelly's voice and polite manner that she was not the child of any of the common farmers of the country.

"Have you lived here long?" he said.

"Oh, no!" replied Nelly: "only since last spring. We came because my papa was sick. He has the asthma."

"Oh!" said the man: "I thought so."

Nelly wondered why the man should have thought her papa had the asthma; but she did not ask him what he meant. In a few minutes, the man lay down in his wagon and fell fast asleep, and Nelly went into the house. After dinner, she told Rob about the man, and they went out together to see him. They peeped into the wagon. It was loaded full of small bits of gray rock: the man was rolled up in a buffalo robe, lying on top of the stones, still fast asleep. His face was very red, and he breathed loud.

"Oh, dear!" said Nelly, "how uncomfortable he must be! He looks real sick."

"I bet he's drunk!" said Rob, who had unluckily seen a good deal of that sort of sickness since he had lived on a thoroughfare for mule-wagons.

"Is he?" said Nelly, horror-stricken. "No, Rob, he can't be, because he talked with me real nice this morning. Let's go and tell mamma."

Mr. March went out, looked at the man, and woke him up. He found that he was indeed ill, and not drunk. The poor fellow had been five days on the road, with a very heavy cold; and had taken more cold every night, sleeping in the open air. Walking all day long in the hot sun had also made him worse, and he was suffering severely.

"Come right into the house with me, my man," said Mr. March; "my wife'll make you a cup of hot tea."

"Oh, thank you!" said the man. "I've been thinkin' I'd give all the ore in this 'ere wagon for a first-rate cup of tea. I don't never carry tea: only coffee; but I've turned against coffee these last two days;" and he followed Mr. March into the house.

"What'd you say you had in your wagon?" asked Rob, who had been standing by.

"Ore," said the man.

The only word Rob knew which had that sound was "oar."

"Oar!" he said. "Why, I didn't see any thing but rocks."

Mr. March and the man both laughed.

"Not 'oar,' to row with, Rob," said Mr. March; "but 'ore,' to make money out of."

"Silver ore, I suppose," he added, turning to the man.

"Yes," he said; "from the Moose mine, up on Mount Lincoln."

Rob's eyes grew big. "Oh! tell me about it," he said. And Nelly, coming up closer, exclaimed, in a tone unusually eager for her, "And me too. Is the mountain made of silver, like the mountains in fairy stories?"

The man was drinking his tea, and did not answer. He drank it in great mouthfuls, though it was scalding hot.

"Oh, ma'am," he said, "I haven't tasted any thing that went right to the spot's that does, for months; if it wouldn't trouble ye too much, I'd like one more cup." He drank the second cup as quickly as he had the first; then he leaned his head back in the chair, and said: "I feel like a new man now. I guess that was the medicine I needed. I reckon I can go on this afternoon."

"No," said Mr. March: "you ought to stay here till to-morrow. There is an old leather-covered settee in the barn you're welcome to sleep on. It will be better than the ground; and we'll doctor you with hot tea, night and morning."

"You're very kind," said the man: "I don't know but I'd better stay."

"Oh, do! do!" said Rob; and "do do!" said Nelly. "Stay and tell us all about the mountain of silver and the Moose; does the Moose draw out the silver?"

You see Rob and Nelly couldn't get it out of their heads that it was all like a fairy tale. And so it is when you think of it, more wonderful than almost any fairy tale, to think how great mountains are full of silver and of gold, and men can burrow deep down into them, and get out all the silver and gold they need.

"Oh, there isn't any real Moose," said the man. "That's only the name of the mine. I don't know why they called the mine the Moose mine. They give mines the queerest kind o' names."

"What is a mine, anyhow?" asked Rob.

"Oh," said the man, "I forgot you didn't know that. A mine's a hole in the ground, or in the side of a mountain, where they dig out gold or silver. There's mines that's miles and miles big, underground, with passages running every way like streets."

"How do they see down there?" said Rob.

"They carry lanterns, and there are lanterns fastened up in the walls."

"Is your wagon all full of silver?" asked Nelly, in a low tone.

"Not exactly all silver yet," the man said, laughing; "there's a good deal of silver in it: it's very good ore."

"It looked just like gray rock," said Rob.

"Well, that's what it is," replied the man; "it's gray rock. It's got to be all pounded up fine in a mill, and then it's got to be roasted with salt in a great oven, and then it's got to be mixed with chemicals and things. I don't rightly know just what it is they do to it; it's a heap of work I know, before it ever gets to be the pure silver."

"Some day I will take you, Rob," said his father, "where you can see all this done: I want to see it myself. Run out, now, you and Nelly, and play, and let the driver rest. He is too tired to talk any more."

Rob and Nelly went back to the wagon. All Nelly's anemones and daisies were lying on the ground, withered. Even this one short hour of hot sun had been enough to kill them.

"Oh, my poor, dear flowers!" said Nelly, picking them up. "How could I forget you!" and she looked at them as sorrowfully as if they were little babies she had neglected.

"Pooh, Nell," cried Rob. "They're no good now. Throw them in the brook, and come look at the silver."

They both climbed up on the tongue of the wagon and looked in at the front.

"I can't see any silver about it," said Nelly; "it don't look like any thing but little gray stones, all broken up into bits."

"No," said Rob: "it don't shine much;" and he picked up a bit and held it out in the sun.

"Oh, take care! take care, Rob!" cried Nelly. "Don't lose it; it might be as much as a quarter of a dollar, that bit."

"Nell, said Rob, earnestly, "don't you wish papa had a mine, and we could dig up all the money we wanted? oh, my!" and Rob drew in his breath in a long whistle.

"Yes," said Nelly: "I mean to look for one. Do you find the holes already dug, do you suppose? Perhaps that place where old Molly tumbled in was a mine."

Old Molly was one of their cows, who had tumbled one day into a hole made by a slide of earth; and Zeb had had to go down and tie ropes around her to pull her up.

"Yes," said Rob: "I bet you any thing it is. Let's go right up there now, and see if we can find some rock like this. I'll carry this piece in my pocket to tell by. I'll only borrow it: I'll put it back."

"Let me carry it then," said Nelly. "I'm so afraid you'll lose it."

So Nelly tied the little bit of gray rock in a corner of her pocket-handkerchief, and then crammed her handkerchief down tight in her pocket, and they set off at a swift pace, towards the ravine where Molly had had her unlucky fall.

When dinner-time came, the children were nowhere to be found. Zeb went up and down the brook for a mile, looking and calling aloud. Watch and Trotter had both disappeared also.

"Ye needn't worry so long's the dogs is along, ma'am," said Zeb, when he returned from his bootless search. "If they get into any trouble, Watch'll come home and let us know. He's got more sense'n most men, that dog has."

But Mrs. March could not help worrying. Never since they had lived in the Pass had Nelly and Rob gone away for any long walk without coming and bidding her good-by, and telling her where they were going. The truth was, that this time they had entirely forgotten it: they were so excited by the hopes of finding a mine. They had walked nearly a mile when Nelly suddenly exclaimed: "Oh, Rob! we didn't say good-by to mamma! She won't know where we are."

"So we didn't!" said Rob. "What a shame! But we can't go back now, Nell: it's too late; we've come miles and miles; we'd better keep on; she'll know we're all right; we always are. We're most there now."

It was the middle of the afternoon before Rob and Nelly got home. Mrs. March had been walking up and down the road anxiously for an hour, when she saw the two little figures coming down the very steepest of the hills. They walked very slowly; so slowly that she felt sure one of them must be hurt. The dogs were bounding along before them. As soon as the children saw their mother, Rob took off his hat, and Nelly her sun-bonnet, and waved them in the air. This relieved Mrs. March's fears, and the tears came into her eyes, she was so glad. "Oh, Robert, there they are!" she exclaimed to Mr. March, who had just joined her. "See! there they are, way up on that steep hill. Thank God, they are safe!"

Mr. and Mrs. March both stood in the road, shading their eyes with their hands, and looking up at the children.

As they drew nearer, Mrs. March exclaimed: "Why, what are they carrying?" Mr. March burst out laughing, and said: "They look like little pack mules." In a few minutes, the hot, tired, dusty little wanderers reached the road, and ran breathlessly up to their father and mother:

"Oh, mamma!" cried Rob; and "Oh, papa!" cried Nelly. "We've found a mine; we've got lots of ore; now we can get all the money we want. You see if this isn't almost exactly like the stuff in the man's wagon!" and Nelly emptied her apron on the ground, and Rob emptied his jacket; he had taken it off and carried it by the sleeves so as to make a big sack of it. Mr. and Mrs. March could hardly keep from laughing at the sight: there were the two piles of little bits of stone, and the children with red and dirty faces and the perspiration rolling down their cheeks, getting down on their knees to pick out the choicest specimens. Nelly was fumbling deep down in her pocket; presently she drew out her handkerchief all knotted in a wisp, and out of the last knot she took the little bit of ore which they had borrowed from the wagon for a sample. This she laid in her father's hand: "There, papa," she said, "that's the man's: we borrowed it to carry along to tell by."

"They don't look so much like it as they did," she added, turning sorrowfully back to the poor little pile of stones. Rob was gazing at them too, with a crest-fallen face.

"Why, they don't shine a bit now," he said; "up there they shone like every thing."

Mr. March picked up a bit of the stone and looked closely at it.

"Ah, Rob," he said, "the reason it doesn't shine now, is because the sun has gone under a cloud. There are little points of mica in these stones, and mica shines in the sun; but there isn't any silver here, dear. Did you really think you had made all our fortunes?"

Rob did not speak. He had hard work to keep from crying. He stood still, slowly kicking the pile of stones with one foot. His father pitied him very much.

"Never mind, Rob," he said; "you're not the first fellow that has thought he had found a mine, and been mistaken."

Rob stooped down and picked up two big handfuls of the stones and threw them as far as he could throw them.

"Old cheats!" he said.

"Yes, real old cheats!" said Nelly; and she began to scatter the stones with her foot. "And they were awful heavy. Oh, mamma, I'm so hungry!"

"So'm I," said Rob. "Isn't it dinner-time?"

"Dinner-time!" exclaimed their mother. "Did you really not have any more idea of the time than that! Why, it is three o'clock! Where have you been?"

"Not very far, mamma," answered Nelly; "only up where old Molly tumbled in. Rob thought perhaps that hole was a mine. It's all full of these shining stones. Isn't it too bad, mamma?"

"Isn't what too bad, Nell?" said Mrs. March.

"Why, too bad that they ain't silver," replied Nelly. "We thought we could all have every thing we wanted."

Mrs. March laughed.

"What do you want most of all this minute?" she said.

"Something to eat, mamma," said Nelly.

"Well, that you can have; and that I hope we can always have without any silver mine: and to-day we have something very good to eat."

"Oh! what, mamma, what? say, quick!" said Rob.

"Chicken pie," said Mrs. March, in a very comical, earnest tone.

"Chicken pie!" shouted Rob. "Hurrah! hurrah!" and both he and Nelly ran toward the house as hard as they could go.

"There is a wish-bone drying for you on the mantelpiece," called out Mr. March.

"They'll both wish for a silver mine, I expect," laughed Mrs. March, as she and her husband walked slowly along. "What a queer notion that was to come into such children's heads!"

"I don't know," said Mr. March, reflectively; "I think it's a very natural notion to come into anybody's head. I'd like a silver mine myself, very much."

"We mightn't be any happier if we had one, nor half so happy," replied Mrs. March. "I'd rather have you well, and the children well, than have all the silver mines in Colorado."

"If you had to choose between the two things, I dare say," answered Mr. March; "but I suppose a person might have good health and a silver mine besides. How would that do?"

"Well, I'll make sure of the health first," said Mrs. March, laughing. "I'm not in so much hurry for the silver mine."

After Rob and Nelly had eaten up all the chicken pie which had been saved for them, they took down the wish-bone from the mantelpiece, and prepared to "wish."

"It's so dry, it'll break splendidly," said Rob. "I know what I'm going to wish for."

"So do I," said Nelly, resolutely; "I'm going to wish hard."

They both pulled with all their might. Crack went the wish-bone,—no difference in the length of the two pieces.

"Pshaw!" cried Rob; "how mean! one or the other of us might have had it."

Nelly drew a long sigh. "Rob," said she, "What did you wish for?"

"A silver mine," said he, "both times."

"So did I," said Nell. "I thought you did, too. I guess we sha'n't either of us ever have one."

"I don't care," said Rob; "there's plenty of money besides in mines. I'm going to have a bank when I'm a man."

"Are you, Rob?" said Nell. "What's that?"

"Oh, just a house where you can go and get money," replied Rob, confidently. "I used to go with papa often at home. They gave him all he wanted."

Nelly looked somewhat perplexed. She did not know any thing about banks: still she thought there was a loose screw somewhere in Rob's calculations; but she did not ask him any more questions.

After tea, Mr. March walked away with the driver of the mule team. They did not come back until it was dark. Mr. March opened the door of the sitting-room, and said, "Sarah, I wish you'd come out here a few minutes." When she had stepped out and closed the door, he said, "I want you to come up where the wagon is: there's a nice bonfire up there, and it isn't cold; I want this man to tell you all he's been telling me about a place down south,—a hundred miles below this. If it's all's he says, that's the place we ought to go to. But I wanted you to hear all about it before I said any thing to the Deacon."

The driver's name, by the way, was Billy; he was called "Long Billy" on the roads where he drove, because his legs were so long, and his body so short. He had made a splendid bonfire on the edge of the brook, and Mr. March and he had been sitting there for an hour, on a buffalo robe spread on the ground. Mrs. March sat down with them, and Long Billy began his story over again. It seemed that he had formerly been a driver of a mule team on another route, much farther south than this one. He had "hauled ore," as he called it, from a little town called Rosita, to another town called Canyon City. There the ore was packed on cars and sent over the little narrow-gauge railroad up to Central City, where the silver was extracted from the rock, and moulded into little solid bricks of silver ready to be sent to the mint at Philadelphia to be made into half dollars and quarters.

This town of Rosita lay among mountains: was built on the sides of two or three narrow gulches, in the Wet Mountain range; at the foot of these mountains was the beautiful Wet Mountain Valley,—a valley thirty miles long, and only from five to eight miles wide; on the side farthest from Rosita this valley was walled by another high mountain range, the Sangre di Christo range. This means "The blood of Christ." The Spaniards gave this name to the mountains when they first came to the country. All the mountains in the Sangre di Christo range are over eight thousand feet high, and many of them are over twelve thousand; their points are sharp like the teeth of a saw, and they are white with snow the greater part of the year. The beautiful valley lying between these two long lines of mountains was the place about which Long Billy had been telling Mr. March, and now began to tell Mrs. March.

"Why, ma'am," he said, "I tell ye, after coming over these plains, it is jest like lookin' into Heaven, to get a look down into that valley; it's as green as any medder land ye ever laid your eyes on; I've seen the grass there higher'n my knee, in July."

"Oh!" said Mrs. March, with a sigh of satisfaction at the very thought of it, "I would like to see tall grass once more."

"Yes, indeed wife," said Mr. March; "but think what a place that would be for cattle, and for hay. Farming would be something worth talking about; and Billy says that the farmers in the valley can have a good market in Rosita for all they can raise. There are nearly a thousand miners there; and it is also only a day's journey from Pueblo, which is quite a city. It really looks to me like the most promising place I've heard any thing about here."

"It's the nicest bit of country there is anywhere in Colorado," said Billy, "'s fur's I've seen it. Them mountains's jest a picture to look at all the time; 'n' there's a creek,—Grape Creek, they call it, because it's just lined with wild grape-vines, for miles,—runs through the valley; 'n' lots o' little creeks coming down out o' the mountains, 'n' empties into't. I wouldn't ask nothin' more o' the Lord than that He'd give me a little farm down in Wet Mountain Valley for the rest o' my life. I know that."

"Do you think there are any farms there that could be bought?" asked Mr. March, anxiously. "I should think such desirable lands would be all taken up."

"Well, they're changin' round there a good deal," said Billy. "Ye wouldn't think it; but men they git discontented a hearing so much talk about silver. They're always a hoping to get hold on a mine 'n' make a big fortin all in a minnit; but I hain't seen so many of these big fortins made off minin' 'n this country. For one man thet's made his fortin, I've known twenty that's lost it. Now I think on't I did hear, last spring, that Wilson he wanted to sell out; 'n' if you could get his farm, you'd jest be fixed first rate. There's the best spring o' water on his place there is in all the valley; and it ain't more'n four miles 'n' a half from his place up into Rosita: ye'd walk it easy."

Mr. March looked at his wife. Her face was full of excitement and pleasure.

"It sounds perfectly delightful, Robert," she said; "but you know we thought just so about this Pass. The pictures were so beautiful, and all they told us sounded attractive."

Billy made a scornful sound almost like a snort.

"H'm!" he said, "anybody that recommended ye to settle this low down in the Ute Pass for stock-raisin' or farmin' must ha' been either a knave or a fool: that's certain."

"A knave, I think," said Mrs. March. "He tried very hard to sell us the whole place."

"I'll be bound he did," sneered Billy; "cheap enough he'll sell it, too, afore ever he gets anybody to buy."

"Say, mister," he continued, "you jest come along with me to-morrow: I'd like to take a run down to Rosita, first rate; 'n' I've got to lay by a few days anyhow. I'll get this load o' ore board the cars at the Springs, 'n' then I'll jest quit work for a week; 'n' I'll go down with yer to Rosita. There's somebody there I'm wantin' to see putty bad." And Billy's burnt face grew a shade or two deeper red.

"Ah, Billy, is that it?" said Mr. March.

"Well, yes, sir. We're a calculatin' to be married one o' these days soon's I get a little ahead. It's slow work, though, layin' up money teamin', 'n' I won't take her out of a good home till I can give her one o' her own's good. Her father he's foreman 'n one o' the mines there; 'n' he's always been a real forehanded man. She's well off: she's got no occasion to marry anybody to be took care of." And Billy smiled complacently at the thought that it must have been for pure love that the Rosita young lady had promised to marry him.

"Sarah, what do you think of my going?" said Mr. March.

"Go, by all means!" said Mrs. March. "The little journey will do you good, even if nothing comes of it. We need not say any thing about the reason for your going, till you get back. If you decide to move down there, that will be time enough to explain."

"And Mrs. Plummer will say that it was all 'providential,'" laughed Mr. March.

"And so shall I, Robert," said Mrs. March, very earnestly.

The next morning Mr. March and Long Billy set off together at seven o'clock. It was the first time Mrs. March had been separated from her husband in this new country, and she dreaded it.

"Good-by! good-by!" called the children, in their night-gowns, at the bedroom window; "good-by, papa."

"Good-by!" said the Deacon; "reckon your bones'll ache some, before ye get to the Springs, a ridin' that wheeler." Mr. March was riding the rear wheeler, and Long Billy was walking by his side.

"Not if he don't walk any faster than this," said Mr. March. "And I shall walk half of the time."

"Ye needn't walk a step if ye'd rather ride," said Billy. "I'm all right this mornin'. 'Tain't only about ten miles down to Colorado Springs. I don't think nothin' o' walkin' that fur, especially when I've got company to talk to. Mules is dreadful tiresome critters. Now a hoss's real good company; but a mule ain't no company, 't all."