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THE TREASURE OF HIDDEN VALLEY

By Willis George Emerson

Chicago: Forbes & Company

1915

               Sons of the rugged, rock-ribbed hills,

                   Far from the gaudy show

               Of Fashion's world-its shams and frills

                   Brothers of rain and snow:

               Kith of the crags and the forest pines,

                   Kin of the herd and flock;

               Wise in the lore of Nature signs

                   Writ in the grass and rock.

               Beings of lithe and lusty limb,

                   Breathing the broad, new life,

               Chanting the forest's primal hymn

                   Free from the world's crude strife.

               Your witching lure my being thrills,

                   O rugged sons! O rugged hills!

[Illustration: 0002]

[Illustration: 0010]

DEDICATED

TO

THE MEMORY OF MY FATHER

REVEREND STEPHEN LAFAYETTE EMERSON

(The Flockmaster of this story)

THE TREASURE OF HIDDEN VALLEY

CHAPTER I--AT THE PARTING OF THE WAYS

IT was a dear, crisp October morning. There was a shrill whistle of a
locomotive, and then a westbound passenger train dashed into the depot
of an Iowa town. A young man descended the car steps with an armful of
luggage. He deposited his parcels on the platform, and half expectantly
looked about him.

Just then there was a "honk! honk!" from a huge automobile as it came to
a palpitating halt, and a familiar voice called out: "Hello, Roderick,
old man!" And a moment later Roderick Warfield was shaking hands with
his boon friend of former college days, Whitley Adams. Both were in
their early twenties, stalwart, well set up, clean-cut young fellows.

Whitley's face was all aglow in the happiness of reunion. But Roderick,
after the first cordial greeting, wore a graver look. He listened
quietly while his comrade rambled on.

"Mighty glad to receive your wire last night at the club. But what
brings you home so unexpectedly? We've been hearing all sorts of glowing
stories--about your being in the thick of affairs in little old New York
and rolling in the shekels to beat the band."

"Fairy tales," was the laconic reply, accompanied by a look that was
compounded of a sigh and a wistful smile.

"How's that?" asked young Adams, glancing up into the other's face
and for the first time noticing its serious expression. "Don't tell
me you've struck a financial snag thus early in your Stock Exchange
career."

"Several financial snags--and struck 'em pretty badly too, I'm afraid."

"Whew!" exclaimed Adams.

"Oh, I'm not down and out," laughed Roderick, half amused at the look of
utter discomfiture on his companion's countenance. "Not by a long chalk!
I'm in on several good deals, and six months from date will be standing
on velvet. That is to say," he added, somewhat dubiously, "if Uncle
Allen opens up his money bags to tide me over meanwhile."

"A pretty big 'if,' eh?" For the moment there was sympathetic sobriety
in the youth's tone, but he quickly regained his cheerfulness. "However,
he'll come through probably all right, Rod, dear boy. It's the older
fellows' privilege, isn't it? My good dad has had the same experience,
as you will no doubt have guessed. There, let me see; how long have you
been away? Eight months! Gee! However, I have just gotten home
myself. My old man was a bit furious at my tardiness in coming and the
geometrical increase of my expense account. To do Los Angeles and
San Francisco thoroughly, you know, runs into a pot of money. But now
everything is fixed up after a fashion with no evidence in sight of
further squalls." He laughed the laugh of an overgrown boy laboring
under the delusion that because he has finished a collegiate course he
is a "man."

"Of course," he continued with a swagger, "we chaps who put in four long
years at college should not be expected to settle down without having
some sort of a valedictory fling."

"There has not been much of a fling in my case," protested Warfield. "I
tackled life seriously in New York from the start."

"But got a tumble all the same," grinned Adams. "However, there's no
use in pulling a long face--at least not until your Uncle Allen has been
interviewed and judiciously put through his paces. Come now, let us get
your things aboard."

The conversation was halted while the young owner of the big 60 H. P.
car helped his chauffeur to stow away the luggage. "To the club,"
he called out as he seated himself in the tonneau with his boyhood
friend--college chum and classmate.

"Not this morning!" exclaimed Roderick, shaking his head as he looked
frankly and a bit nervously into the eyes of Whitley Adams. "No club for
me until I have squared things up on the hill."

"Oh, well, just as you say; if it's as bad as that, why of course--" He
broke off and did not finish the sentence, but directed the chauffeur to
the residence of Allen Miller, the banker.

They rode a little way in silence and then Whitley Adams observed:
"You've made a muddle of things, no doubt," and he turned with a knowing
look and a smile toward Roderick, who in turn flushed, as though hit.

"No doubt," he concurred curtly.

"Then when shall I see you?" asked Whitley as the auto slowed down at
the approach to the stately Miller home.

"I'll 'phone you," replied Roderick. "Think I can arrange to be at the
club this evening."

"Very well," said his friend, and a minute later he had whirled away
leaving a cloud of dust in the trail of the machine.

Roderick Warfield met with a motherly reception at the hands of his Aunt
Lois, Mrs. Allen Miller. The greetings over and a score of solicitous
questions by his Aunt Lois answered, he went to his room for a bath and
a change of clothes. Then without further delay he presented himself at
the bank, and in a few moments was closeted in the president's private
room with his uncle and guardian, Allen Miller.

The first friendly greetings were soon followed by the banker skidding
from social to business considerations. "Yes," said Allen Miller, "I am
glad to see you, Roderick, mighty glad. But what do you mean by writing
a day ahead that a good big sum is required immediately, this without
mention of securities or explanation of any kind?". He held up in his
hand a letter that ran to just a few niggardly lines. "This apology for
a business communication only reached me by last night's mail."

The kindly look of greeting had changed to one that was fairly flinty in
its hardness. "What am I to expect from such a demand? A bunch of unpaid
accounts, I suppose." As he uttered this last sentence, there was a
wicked twang in his voice--a suggestion of the snarl of an angry wolf
ready for a fierce encounter. It at least proved him a financier.

A flush of resentment stole over Roderick's brow. His look was more
than half-defiant. On his side it showed at once that there would be no
cringing for the favor he had come to ask.

But he controlled himself, and spoke with perfect calm.

"My obligations are not necessarily disgraceful ones, as your manner and
tone, Uncle, might imply. As for any detailed explanation by letter,
I thought it best to come and put the whole business before you
personally."

"And the nature of the business?" asked the banker in a dry harsh voice.

"I am in a big deal and have to find my _pro ratâ_ contribution
immediately."

"A speculative deal?" rasped the old man.

"Yes; I suppose it would be called speculative, but it is gilt-edged
all the same. I have all the papers here, and will show them to you." He
plunged a hand into the breast pocket of his coat and produced a neatly
folded little bundle of documents.

"Stop," exclaimed the banker. "You need not even undo that piece of tape
until you have answered my questions. A speculative deal, you admit."

"Be it so."

"A mining deal, may I ask?"

Roderick's face showed some confusion. But he faced the issue promptly
and squarely.

"Yes, sir, a mining deal."

The banker's eyes fairly glittered with steely wrathfulness.

"As I expected. By gad, it seems to run in the blood! Did I not warn
you, when you insisted on risking your meagre capital of two thousand
dollars in New York instead of settling down with what would have been
a comfortable nest egg here, that if you ever touched mining it would
be your ruin? Did I not tell you your father's story, how the lure
of prospecting possessed him, how he could never throw it off, how it
doomed him to a life of hardship and poverty, and how it would have left
you, his child, a pauper but for an insurance policy which it was his
one redeeming act of prudence in carrying?"

"Please do not speak like that of my father," protested Roderick,
drawing himself up with proud <md manly dignity.

The banker's manner softened; a kindlier glow came into his eyes.

"Well, boy, you know I loved your father. If your father had only
followed my path he would have shared my prosperity. But it was not to
be. He lost all he ever made in mining, and now you are flinging the
little provision his death secured for you into the same bottomless
pool. And this despite all my warnings, despite my stern injunctions
so long as it was my right as your guardian to enjoin. The whole thing
disgusts me more than words can tell."

Into the banker's voice the old bitterness, if not the anger, had
returned. He rose and restlessly paced the room. A silence followed
that was oppressive. Roderick Warfield's mind was in the future; he was
wondering what would happen should his uncle remain obdurate. The older
man's mind was in the past; he was recalling events of the long ago.

Roderick Warfield's father and Allen Miller had as young men braved
perils together in an unsuccessful overland trip when the great
California gold rush in the early fifties occurred. At that time they
were only boys in their 'teens. Years afterward they married sisters and
settled down in their Iowa homes--or tried to settle down in Warfield's
case, for in his wanderings he had been smitten with the gold fever
and he remained a mining nomad to the end of his days. Allen Miller
had never been blessed with a child, and it was not until late in their
married life that any addition came to the Warfield family. This was the
beginning of Roderick Warfield's career, but cost the mother's life. Ten
years later John Warfield died and his young son Roderick was given
a home with Mr. and Mrs. Allen Miller, the banker accepting the
guardianship of his old friend's only child.

The boy's inheritance was limited to a few thousand dollars of life
insurance, which in the hands of anyone but Allen Miller would have
fallen far short of putting him through college. However, that was not
only accomplished, but at the close of a fairly brilliant college career
the young man had found himself possessed of a round couple of thousand
dollars. Among his college friends had been the son of a well-to-do New
York broker, and it was on this friend's advice that Roderick had at the
outset of his business life adventured the maelstrom of Gotham instead
of accepting the placid backwaters of his Iowan home town. Hence the
young man's present difficulties and precarious future, and his uncle's
bitterness of spirit because all his past efforts on Roderick's account
had proved of such little avail.

At last the banker resumed his chair. The tightly closed lips showed
that his mind was made up to a definite line of action. Roderick awaited
the decision in silence--it was not in his nature to plead a cause at
the cost of losing his own self-respect He had already returned the
unopened bundle of mining papers to the inner pocket of his coat.

"As for any advance to meet speculative mining commitments," began the
man of finance, "I do not even desire to know the amount you have had
in mind. That is a proposition I cannot even entertain--on principle and
for your own ultimate good, young man."

"Then I lose all the money I have put in to date."

"Better a present loss than hopeless future entanglements. Your
personal obligations? As you have been using all available funds for
speculation, I presume you are not free from some debts."

"Less than a thousand dollars all told."

"Well, you have, I believe, $285.75 standing to your personal credit in
this bank--the remnant of your patrimony."

"I did not know I had so much," remarked Roderick with a faint smile.

"All the better, perhaps," replied the banker, also smiling grimly.
"The amount would have doubtless been swallowed up with the rest of your
money. As matters stand, some payment can be made to account of your
obligations and arrangements entered into for the gradual liquidation of
the outstanding balance." Young Warfield winced. The banker continued:
"This may involve some personal humiliation for you. But again it is
against my principles to pay any man's debts. Anyone who deliberately
incurs a liability should have the highly beneficial experience of
earning the money to liquidate it I propose to give you the chance to do
so."

Roderick raised his eyebrows in some surprise. "In New York?" he
enquired.

"No, sir," replied Allen Miller rather brusquely and evidently nettled
at the very audacity of the question. "Not in New York, but right
here--in Keokuk. Calm your impatience, please. Just listen to the
proposals I have to make--they have been carefully thought out by me
and by your Aunt Lois as well. In the first place, despite your rather
reckless and improvident start in life, I am prepared to make you
assistant cashier of this bank at a good salary." Again Roderick
evinced amazement. He was quite nonplussed at his uncle's changed
demeanor. The conciliatory manner and kindly tone disarmed him. But
could he ever come to renounce his New York ambitions for humdrum
existence in the old river town of Keokuk? He knew the answer in his
heart. The thing was impossible.

"And if you are diligent," continued the banker, "prove capable and
make good, you may expect in time to be rewarded with a liberal block
of stock in the bank. Come now, what do you say to this part of my
programme?" urged the speaker as Roderick hesitated.

The young man's mind was already made up. The offer was not even worth
considering. And yet, he must not offend his guardian. It was true,
Allen Miller's guardianship days were past, but still in his rapid
mental calculations Roderick thought of his stanch old stand-by, Uncle
Allen Miller, as "Guardian." He lighted a cigar to gain time for the
framing of a diplomatic answer.

"Well," said the banker, with a rising inflection, "does it require any
time to consider the generous offer I make?"

Roderick pulled a long breath at his cigar and blew rings of smoke
toward the ceiling, and said: "Your offer, Uncle, is princely, but I
hardly feel that I should accept until I have thought it all over from
different points of view and have the whole question of my future plans
fully considered. What are the other items on your programme?"

"They should be rather counted as conditions," replied the banker drily.
"The conditions on which the offer I have just made are based."

"And they are what?"

"You must quit speculation, give up all expensive habits, marry and
settle down." The words were spoken with all the definiteness of an
ultimatum.

Again Roderick winced. He might have been led to all or at least some
of these things. But to be driven, and by such rough horse-breaking
methods--. never! no, never. He managed to restrain himself, however,
and replied quietly: "My dear uncle, the idea of marrying for some years
yet, to tell you the truth, has never entered my head. Of course," he
went on lightly, "there is a young lady over at Galesburg, Stella Rain,
where my Knox college days were spent, the 'college widow,' in a way a
very lovely sort and in whom I have been rather interested for some two
years, but--"

"That will do, young man," interrupted Allen Miller, sharply and
severely. "Never mind your society flyers--these lady friends of yours
in Galesburg. Your Aunt Lois and myself have already selected your
future wife."

He laughed hoarsely, and the laugh sounded brutal even to his own ears.
Allen Miller realized uncomfortably that he had been premature and
scored against himself.

"Oh, is that so?" ejaculated Roderick in delicate irony. A pink flush
had stolen into his cheeks.

The old banker hesitated in making reply. He grew hot and red and
wondered if he had begun his match-making too abruptly--the very thing
about which his good wife Lois had cautioned him. In truth, despite
the harsh methods often imposed on him by his profession as a banker, a
kinder heart than Allen Miller's never beat. But in this new rôle he
was out of his element and readily confused. Finally after clearing his
throat several times, he replied: "Yes, Roderick, in a way, your Aunt
Lois and I have picked out the girl we want you to marry. Her father's
wealth is equal to mine and some day perhaps--well, you can't tell--I'll
not live always and, provided you don't disobey me, you may inherit
under my will a control of the stock of this banking house, and so be at
the head of an important and growing financial institution."

Roderick instead of being fifty-four and calculating, was only
twenty-four and indifferent to wealth, and the red blood of his generous
youth revolted at the mercenary methods suggested by his uncle regarding
this unknown girl's financial prospects. And then, too, the inducement
thrown out that under conditions of obedience he might inherit the
fortune of his uncle, was, he interpreted, nothing short of an attempt
to bribe and deprive him of his liberty. He flushed with indignation and
anger. Yet with a strong effort he still controlled his feelings, and
presently asked: "Who is the fair lady?"

"The daughter of an old friend of mine. They live only a short distance
down the river. Their home is at Quincy, Illinois. Mighty fine old
family, I can tell you. Am sure you'll like her immensely."

"Am I to understand," asked Roderick rather caustically, "that the young
lady acquiesces and enters graciously into your plans?"

"Well, I can't say that!" replied Allen Miller, rubbing his chin. "But
your Aunt Lois and I have talked over the possible alliance in all its
lights."

"With the young lady's family, I presume?"

"No, not even that. But we are perfectly certain that we have only to
speak the word to put the business through all right."

"Business!"--Roderick repeated the word with bitter emphasis.

"Yes, sir, business," retorted Allen Miller, with some warmth. "To my
mind matrimony is one of the most important deals in life--perhaps _the_
most important."

"If the money is right," laughed the young man contemptuously. "But
don't you think that before another word is said about such a matter
I should have the chance of seeing the young lady and the young lady a
chance of seeing me?"

The humor of the situation had brought a pleasant smile to his face. The
banker looked relieved.

"Wait now, my boy," he replied musingly. "Do you remember when you were
a little chap, perhaps twelve or thirteen years old, going with your
Aunt Lois and myself to St. Louis on the Diamond Joe boat line?"

"Yes, I remember it perfectly."

"Well, then," continued Allen Miller, "you perhaps haven't forgotten a
lady and gentleman with a little tot of a girl only five or six years
old, who joined us at Quincy. You engaged in a regular boyish love
affair at first sight with that little girl. Well, she is the one--a
mighty fine young lady now--just passed eighteen and her father is rated
away up in the financial world."

For the moment Roderick's indignation over the cold-blooded,
cut-and-dried, matrimonial proposition was arrested, and he did not
even notice the renewed reference to finance. He had become pensive and
retrospective.

"How very long ago," he mused more to himself than to his Uncle
Allen--"How very long ago since that trip down the river. Yes, I
remember well the little blue-eyed, black-curly-headed chick of a girl.
It was my first steamboat ride and of course it was a holiday and a
fairyland affair to my boyish fancy."

He drew in a long breath and looked out through the window at the snow
which was now falling, as if many chapters of the world's history had
been written in his own life since that far away yet well remembered
trip. He fell silent for a spell.

Allen Miller chuckled to himself. At last his scheme was working.
All his life he had been a success with men and affairs, and his
self-confidence was great. He rubbed his hands together and smiled,
while he humored Roderick's silence. He would tell his wife Lois of
his progress. Presently he said: "She is an only child, Roderick, and I
think her father could qualify for better than a quarter of a million."

This time the reiterated money recommendation jarred unpleasantly on
Roderick's nerves and revived his antagonism. He hastily arose from his
chair and walked back and forth across the room. Presently he halted
before his uncle and with forced deliberation--for his anger was keyed
to a high tension--said: "I am pleased, Uncle, to know the young lady
is not a party to this shameful piece of attempted barter and sale
business. When I marry, if ever, it shall be someone as regards whom
wealth will count as of least importance. True love loathes avarice and
greed. I require no further time to consider your proposals. I flatly
reject your offer of a position in the bank, and shall leave Keokuk
tomorrow. I prefer hewing out my own destiny and while doing so
retaining my freedom and my self-respect. This is my decision, and it is
an irrevocable one."

The ebullition of pent-up feelings had come so suddenly and unexpectedly
that Allen Miller was momentarily overwhelmed. He had arisen and was
noticeably agitated. His face was very white, and there was a look in
his eyes that Roderick Warfield had never seen before.

"Young man," he said, and his voice was husky and trembling with
suppressed rage--"you shall never have a dollar of my fortune unless you
marry as I direct I will give you until tomorrow to agree to my plans.
If you do not desire to accept my offer without change or modification
in any shape, then take the balance of your money in the bank and go
your way. I wash my hands of you and your affairs. Go and play football
with the world or let the world play football with you, and see how it
feels to be the 'pigskin' in life's game."

With these words the old man swung a chair round to the fireplace,
dropped into it, and began vigorously and viciously pounding at a lump
of coal. There was an interval of silence. At last Roderick spoke; his
voice was firm and low.

"There will not be the slightest use, Uncle, in reopening this question
tomorrow. My mind, as I have said, is already made up--unalterably." The
last word was uttered with an emphasis that rang finality.

The banker flung down the poker, and rose to his feet. His look was
equally determined, equally final, equally unalterable.

"All right," he snapped. "Then we'll get through the banking business
now."

He touched a push-button by the side of the mantel. During the brief
interval before a clerk responded to the summons, not another word was
spoken.

"Bring me the exact figure of Mr. Warfield's credit balance," he said to
his subordinate, "and cash for the amount. He will sign a check to close
the account."

Five minutes later Roderick had the little wad of bills in his pocket,
and was ready to depart Uncle and nephew were again alone.

"There is one other matter," said the banker with cold formality. "There
is a paper in my possession which was entrusted to my keeping by your
father just before he died. I was to deliver it to you at my discretion
after you had attained your majority, but in any case on your reaching
the age of twenty-five. I will exercise my discretion, and hand over the
paper to you now."

He advanced to a safe that stood open at one side of the room, unlocked
a little drawer, and returned to the fireplace with a long linen
envelope in his hand. A big red splash of wax showed that it had been
carefully sealed.

"This is yours," said the banker shortly, handing it over to the young
man.

The latter was greatly agitated. A message from his dead father! What
could it mean? But he mastered his emotions and quietly bestowed the
packet in his breast pocket--beside the papers connected with the mining
deal.

"I'll read this later," he said. And then he extended his hand. There
was yearning affection in his eyes, in the tremor of his voice: "Uncle,
we surely will part as friends."

"You can regain my friendship only by doing my will. I have nothing more
to say. Good-by."

And without taking the proffered hand, Allen Miller turned away, leaning
an elbow on the mantelshelf. His attitude showed that the interview was
at an end.

Without another word Roderick Warfield left the room. Outside the soft
snow was falling in feathery silence. At a street corner the young
man hesitated. He glanced up the road that led to his old home--Allen
Miller's stately mansion on the hill. Then he took the other turning.

"I guess I'll sleep at the Club to-night," he murmured to himself. "I
can bid Aunt Lois good-by in the morning."

CHAPTER II--A MESSAGE FROM THE GRAVE

ALLEN MILLER, the rich banker, was alone--alone in the president's room
at his bank, and feeling alone in the fullest sense of the word now
that Roderick Warfield had gone, the youth he had reared and loved and
cherished as his own child, now turned out of doors by the old man's
deliberate act.

For full an hour he walked slowly back and forth the whole length of the
apartment But at last he halted once again before the open grate where
some slumbering chunks of coal were burning indifferently. He pushed
them together with the iron poker, and a bright blaze sprung up.

Looking deep into the fire his thoughts went back to his boyhood days
and he saw John Warfield, his chum of many years. He thought of their
experience in the terrible massacre in the Sierra Madre Mountains in the
region of Bridger Peak, of a lost trail, of hunger and thirst and weary
tramps over mountain and down precipitous canyons, of abrupt gashes that
cut the rocky gorges, of great bubbling springs and torrents of mountain
streams, of a narrow valley between high mountains--a valley without a
discoverable outlet--of a beautiful waterway that traversed this
valley and lost itself in the sides of an abrupt mountain, and of the
exhausting hardships in getting back to civilization.

Then Allen Miller, the flint-hearted financier, the stoic, the man of
taciturn habits, did a strange thing. Standing there before the blazing
fire, leaning against the mantel, he put his handkerchief to his eyes
and his frame was convulsed with a sob. Presently he turned away from
the open grate and muttered aloud: "Yes, John Warfield, I loved you and
I love your boy, Roderick. Some day he shall have all I've got. But he
is self-willed--a regular outlaw--and I must wake him up to the demands
of a bread-winner, put the bits into his mouth and make him bridle-wise.
Gad! He's a dynamo, but I love him;" and he half smiled, while his eyes
were yet red and his voice husky.

"Ah, John," he mused as he looked again into the fire, "you might have
been alive today to help me break this young colt to the plough, if you
had only taken my advice and given up the search for that gold mine
in the mountains. Thank God for the compact of secrecy between us--the
secret shall die with me. The years, John, you spent in trying to
re-dis-cover the vault of wealth--and what a will-o'-the-wisp it
proved to be--and then the accident. But now I shall be firm--firm as
a rock--and Roderick, the reckless would-be plunger, shall at last feel
the iron hand of his old guardian beneath the silken glove of my foolish
kindness. He's got to be subdued and broken, even if I have to let him
live on husks for a while. Firm, firm--that's the only thing to be."

As he muttered the last words, Allen Miller shut his square jaws
together with an ugly snap that plainly told the stern policy he had
resolved on and would henceforth determinedly pursue. He put on his
great fur-lined cloak, and silently went out into the evening shadows
and thick maze of descending snow-flakes.

Meanwhile Roderick Warfield had reached his club, engaged a bedroom, and
got a cheerful fire alight for companionship as well as comfort. He had
telephoned to Whitley Adams to dine with him, but for two hours he would
be by himself and undisturbed. He wanted a little time to think. And
then there was the letter from his father. He had settled himself in an
easy chair before the fire, the sealed envelope was in his hand, and the
strange solemn feeling had descended upon him that he was going to hear
his dead father speak to him again.

There was in the silence that enveloped him the pulsing sensation of a
mysterious presence. The ordeal now to be faced came as a climax to the
stormy interview he had just passed through. He had reached a parting
of the ways, and dimly realized that something was going to happen that
would guide him as to the path he should follow. The letter seemed a
message from another world. Unknown to himself the supreme moment that
had now arrived was a moment of transfiguration--the youth became a
man--old things passed away.

With grave deliberation he broke the seal. Inside the folds of a long
and closely written letter was a second cover with somewhat bulky
contents. This he laid for the meantime on a little table by his side.
Then he set himself to a perusal of the letter. It ran as follows:

"My dear Son:--

"This is for you to read when you have come to man's estate--when you
are no longer a thoughtless boy, but a thoughtful man. With this letter
you will find your mother's picture and a ring of pure gold which
I placed upon her finger the day I married her--gold with a special
sentiment attached to it, for I took it from the earth myself--also a
few letters--love letters written by her to me and a tress of her hair.
I am sure you will honor her memory by noble deeds. I loved her dearly.

"I was younger at the time than you are now, Roderick, my son. Your
Uncle Allen Miller--about my own age--and myself planned a trip to
California. It was at the time of the great gold excitement in that far
off land.

"The Overland Train of some two score of ox teams that we were with
traveled but slowly; frequently not more than eight or ten miles a day.
I remembered we had crossed the south fork of the Platte River and had
traveled some two days on westward into the mountains and were near a
place called Bridger Peak. It must have been about midnight when our
camp was startled with the most terrific and unearthly yells ever heard
by mortals. It was a band of murderous Indians, and in less time than
it takes to describe the scene of devastation, all of our stock was
stampeded; our wagons looted and then set on fire. Following this a
general massacre began. Your Uncle Allen and myself, both of us mere
boys in our 'teens, alert and active, managed to make our escape in the
darkness. Being fleet of foot we ran along the mountain side, following
an opening but keeping close to a dense forest of pine trees. In this
way we saved our lives. I afterwards learned that every other member of
the party was killed.

"We were each equipped with two revolvers and a bowie knife and perhaps
jointly had one hundred rounds of cartridges. A couple of pounds of
jerked beef and a half a loaf of bread constituted our provisions.
Fortunately, Allen Miller carried with him a flint and steel, so that
we were enabled to sustain ourselves with cooked food of game we killed
during the weary days that followed.

"With this letter I enclose a map, roughly drawn, but I am sure it will
help you find the lost canyon where flows a beautiful stream of water,
and where your Uncle Allen and myself discovered an amazing quantity of
gold--placer gold. It is in a valley, and the sandbar of gold is about a
mile up stream from where the torrent of rapid water loses itself at
the lower end of the valley--seemingly flowing into the abrupt side of a
mountain. At the place where we found the gold, I remember, there was a
sandbar next to the mountain brook, then a gorge or pocket like an old
channel of a creek bed, and it was here in this old sandbar of a
channel that the nuggets of gold were found--so plentiful indeed,
that notwithstanding we loaded ourselves with them to the limit of
our strength, yet our 'takings' could scarcely be missed from this
phenomenal sandbar of riches. We brought all we could possibly
carry away with us in two bags which we made from extra clothing.
Unfortunately we lost our way and could not find an opening from
the valley, because the waters of the stream disappeared, as I have
described, and we were compelled, after many unsuccessful attempts to
find a water grade opening, to retrace our steps and climb out by the
same precipitous trail that we had followed in going down into this
strange valley.

"We wandered in the mountains as far south as a place now known as
Hahn's Peak, and then eastward, circling in every direction for many
miles in extent. After tramping in an unknown wilderness for forty-seven
days we finally came to the hut of a mountaineer, and were overjoyed to
learn it was on a branch of the Overland trail Not long after this we
fell in with a returning caravan of ox team freighters and after many
weeks of tedious travel arrived at St. Joseph, Mo., footsore and weary,
but still in possession of our gold. A little later we reached our home
near Keokuk, Iowa, and to our great joy learned that our treasure was
worth many thousands of dollars. Your Uncle Allen Miller's half was the
beginning of his fortune. An oath of secrecy exists between your Uncle
Allen Miller and myself that neither shall divulge during our lifetime
that which I am now writing to you, but in thus communicating my story
to you, my own flesh and blood, I do not feel that I am violating my
promise, because the information will not come to you until years after
my death.

"Since your mother's death, I have made seven trips into the Rocky
Mountain region hunting most diligently for an odd-shaped valley where
abrupt mountains wall it in, seemingly on every side, and where we found
the fabulously rich sandbar of gold.

"But I have not succeeded in locating the exact place, not even finding
the lost stream--or rather the spot where the waters disappeared out of
sight at the base of a high mountain range. On my last trip, made
less than one year ago, I met with a most serious accident that has
permanently crippled me and will probably hasten my taking off. On the
map I have made many notes while lying here ill and confined to my room,
and they will give you my ideas of the location where the treasure may
be found. To you, my beloved son, Roderick, I entrust this map. Study it
well and if, as I believe, you have inherited my adventurous spirit, you
will never rest until you find this lost valley and its treasure box
of phenomenal wealth. In Rawlins, Wyoming, you will find an old
frontiersman by the name of Jim Rankin. He has two cronies, or partners,
Tom Sun and Boney Earnest. These three men rendered me great assistance.
If you find the lost mine, reward them liberally.

"I have communicated to no one, not even your good Uncle Allen Miller,
that I have decided on leaving this letter, and the information which it
contains is for your eyes alone to peruse long after my mortal body has
crumbled to dust In imparting this information I do so feeling sure that
your Uncle Allen will never make any effort to relocate the treasure, so
that it is quite right and proper the secret should descend to you.

"My pen drags a little--I am weary and quite exhausted with the effort
of writing. I now find myself wondering whether this legacy--a legacy
telling you of a lost gold mine that may be found somewhere in the
fastnesses of the mountains of Wyoming--will prove a blessing to you or
a disquieting evil. I shall die hoping that it will prove to your good
and that your efforts in seeking this lost mine will be rewarded.

"With tenderest love and affection,

"Your father,

"John Warfield."

When Roderick reached the end of the letter, he remained for a long
time still holding it in his hands and gazing fixedly into the glowing
embers. He was seeing visions--visions of a Wyoming gold mine that would
bring him unbounded wealth. At last he broke from his reveries, and
examined the other package. It was unsealed. The first paper to come
forth proved to be the map to which his father had referred--it was a
pencil drawing with numerous marginal notes that would require close
examination. For the present he laid the document on the table. Then
reverently and tenderly he examined the little bunch of love letters
tied together by a ribbon, the tress of hair placed between two
protecting pieces of cardboard, and the plain hoop of gold wrapped
carefully in several folds of tissue paper. Lastly he gazed upon the
photograph of his mother--the mother he had never seen, the mother who
had given her life so that he might live. There were tears in his eyes
as he gently kissed the sweet girlish countenance.

With thought of her and memories of the old boyhood days again he fell
into a musing mood. Time sped unnoticed, and it was only the chiming of
a church clock outside that aroused him to the fact that the dinner hour
had arrived and that Whitley Adams would be waiting for him downstairs.
He carefully placed all the papers in a writing desk that stood in a
corner of the room, locked it, and put the key in his pocket. Then he
descended to meet his friend.

"Nothing doing, I can see," exclaimed Whitley the moment he saw
Roderick's grave face.

"You've got it right," he answered quietly. "The big 'if' you feared
this morning turned out to be an uncompromising 'no.' Uncle Allen and I
have said good-by."

"No wonder you are looking so glum."

"Not glum, old fellow. I never felt more tranquilly happy in my life.
But naturally I may seem a bit serious. I have to cut out old things in
my life, take up new lines."

"I suppose it's back to New York for you."

"No. Everything goes by the board there. I have to cut my losses and
quit."

"What a cruel sacrifice!"

"Or what a happy release," smiled Roderick. "There is something calling
me elsewhere--a call I cannot resist--a call I believe that beckons me
to success."

"Where?"

"Well, we won't say anything about that at present I'll write you later
on when the outlook becomes clearer. Meanwhile we'll dine, and I'm going
to put up a little business proposition to you. I want you to buy my
half share in the _Black Swan._"

"Guess that can be fixed up all right," replied Whitley, as they moved
toward the dining room. And, dull care laid aside, the two old college
chums gave themselves up to a pleasant evening--the last they would
spend together for many a long day, as both realized.

By eleven o'clock next morning Roderick Warfield had adjusted his
financial affairs. He had received cash for his half interest in the
_Black Swan,_ a river pleasure launch which he and Whitley Adams had
owned in common for several years. He had written one letter, to New
York surrendering his holding in the mining syndicate, and other letters
to his three or four creditors enclosing bank drafts for one-half of
his indebtedness and requesting six months' time for the payment of
the balance. With less than a hundred dollars left he was cheerfully
prepared to face the world.

Then had come the most painful episode of the whole visit--the parting
from Aunt Lois, the woman of gentle ways and kindly heart who had always
loved him like a mother, who loved him still, and who tearfully pleaded
with him to submit even at this eleventh hour to his uncle's will and
come back to his room in the old home. But the adieus had been spoken,
resolutely though tenderly, and now Whitley Adams in his big motor car
had whisked Roderick and his belongings back to the railway depot.

He had barely time to check his trunk to Burlington and swing onto
the moving train. "So long," he shouted to his friend. "Good luck,"
responded Whitley as he waved farewell. And Roderick Warfield was being
borne out into the big new world of venture and endeavor.

Would he succeed in cuffing the ears of chance and conquer, or would
heartless fate play football with him and make him indeed the "pig-skin"
as his uncle had prophesied in the coming events of his destiny--a
destiny that was carrying him away among strangers and to unfamiliar
scenes? As the train rushed along his mind was full of his father's
letter and his blood tingled with excitement over the secret that had
come to him from the darkness of the very grave. The primal man within
him was crying out with mad impatience to be in the thick of the fierce
struggle for the golden spoil.

A witchery was thrumming in his heart--the witchery of the West; and
instead of struggling against the impulse, he was actually encouraging
it to lead him blindly on toward an unsolved mystery of the hills. He
was lifted up into the heights, his soul filled with exalted thoughts
and hopes.

Then came whisperings in a softer strain--gentle whisperings that
brought with them memories of happy college days and the name of Stella
Rain. It was perhaps nothing more nor less than the crude brutality with
which his uncle had pressed his meretricious matrimonial scheme that
caused Roderick now to think so longingly and so fondly of the
charming little "college widow" who had been the object of his youthful
aspirations.

All at once he came to a resolution. Yes; he would spend at least one
day on the old campus grounds at Knox College. The call of the hills
was singing in his heart, the luring irresistible call. But before
responding to it he would once again press the hand and peep into the
eyes of Stella Rain.

CHAPTER III--FINANCIAL WOLVES

ON the very day following Roderick Warfield's departure from Keokuk
there appeared in one of the morning newspapers an item of intelligence
that greatly surprised and shocked the banker, Allen Miller. It
announced the death of the wife of his old friend General John Holden,
of Quincy, Illinois, and with the ghoulish instincts of latter-day
journalism laid bare a story of financial disaster that had, at least
indirectly, led to the lady's lamented demise. It set forth how some
years before the General had invested practically the whole of his
fortune in a western smelter company, how the minority stockholders had
been frozen out by a gang of financial sharps in Pennsylvania, and how
Mrs. Holden's already enfeebled health had been unable to withstand the
blow of swift and sudden family ruin. The General, however, was bearing
his sad bereavement and his monetary losses with the courage and
fortitude that had characterized his military career, and had announced
his intention of retiring to a lonely spot among the mountains of
Wyoming where his daughter, the beautiful and accomplished Gail Holden,
owned a half section of land which had been gifted to her in early
infancy by an unde, a prominent business man in San Francisco. Allen
Miller was sincerely grieved over the misfortunes that had so cruelly
smitten a life-long friend. But what momentarily stunned him was the
thought that Gail Holden was the very girl designated, in mind at least,
by himself and his wife as a desirable match for Roderick. And because
the latter had not at once fallen in with these matrimonial plans, there
had been the bitter quarrel, the stinging words of rebuke that could
never be recalled, and the departure of the young man, as he had told
his aunt, to places where they would never hear of him unless and until
he had made his own fortune in the world.

As the newspaper dropped from his hands, the old banker uttered a great
groan--he had sacrificed the boy, whom in his heart he had cherished,
and still cherished, as a son, for a visionary scheme that had already
vanished into nothingness like a fragile iridescent soap-bubble. For
obviously Gail Holden, her only possessions an impoverished father and a
few acres of rocky soil, was no longer eligible as the bride of a future
bank president and leader in the financial world. The one crumb of
consolation for Allen Miller was that he had never mentioned her name
to Roderick--that when the sponge of time came to efface the quarrel the
whole incident could be consigned to oblivion without any humiliating
admission on his side. For financial foresight was the very essence of
his faith in himself, his hold over Roderick, and his reputation in the
business world.

The afternoon mail brought detailed news of General Holden's speculative
venture and downfall. Allen Miller's correspondent was a lawyer friend
in Quincy, who wrote in strict confidence but with a free and sharply
pointed pen. It appeared that Holden's initial investment had been on a
sound basis. He had held bonds that were underlying securities on a big
smelting plant in Wyoming, in the very district where his daughter's
patch of range lands was situated. It was during a visit to the
little ranch that the general's attention had been drawn to the great
possibilities of a local smelter, and he had been the main one to
finance the proposition and render the erection of the plant possible.
At this stage a group of eastern capitalists had been attracted to the
region, and there had come to be mooted a big consolidation of several
companies, an electric lighting plant, an aerial tramway, a valuable
producing copper mine and several other different concerns that were
closely associated with the smelting enterprise.

In the days that followed a Pennsylvanian financier with a lightning rod
education, by the name of W. B. Grady had visited Holden at his Quincy
home, partaken of his hospitality, and persuaded him to exchange his
underlying bonds for stock in a re-organized and consolidated company.

By reputation this man Grady was already well known to Allen Miller as
one belonging to the new school of unscrupulous stock manipulators that
has grown up, developed, flourished and waxed fat under the blighting
influence and domination of the Well Known Oil crowd. This new school
of financiers is composed of financial degenerates, where the words
"honor," "fair dealing" or the "square deal" have all been effectually
expunged--marked off from their business vocabulary and by them regarded
as obsolete terms. Grady was still a comparatively young man, of
attractive manners and commanding presence, with the rapacity, however,
of a wolf and the cunning of a fox. He stood fully six feet, and his
hair, once black as a raven's, was now streaked with premature gray
which was in no way traceable to early piety. But to have mentioned his
name even in a remote comparison to such a respectable bird as the raven
rendered an apology due to the raven. It was more consistent with the
eternal truth and fitness of things to substitute the term "vulture"--to
designate him "a financial vulture," that detestable bird of prey whose
chief occupation is feasting on carrion and all things where the life
has been squeezed out by the financial octopus, known as "the system."

It developed, according to Banker Miller's correspondent, that no sooner
had General Holden given up his underlying bonds of the smelter company
and accepted stock, than foreclosure proceedings were instituted in the
U. S. District Court, and the whole business closed out and sold and
grabbed by Grady and a small coterie of financial pirates no better than
himself. And all this was done many hundreds of miles away from the
home of the unsuspecting old general, who until it was too late remained
wholly ignorant and unadvised of the true character of the suave and
pleasant appearing Mr. Grady whose promises were innumerable, yet whose
every promise was based upon a despicable prevarication.

And thus it was when the affairs of General Holden were fairly threshed
out, that Allen Miller discovered his old friend had been the prey of
a financial vampire, one skilled in sharp practice and whose artful
cunning technically protected him from being arrested and convicted of
looting the victim of his fortune. Holden had fallen into the hands of
a highwayman as vicious as any stage robber that ever infested the
highways of the frontier. The evidence of the fellow's rascality was
most apparent; indeed, he was in a way caught redhanded with the goods
as surely as ever a sheep-killing dog was found with wool on its teeth.

To the credit of Allen Miller, he never hesitated or wavered in his
generosity to anyone he counted as a true and worthy friend. That
very evening Mrs. Miller departed for Quincy, to offer in person more
discreetly than a letter could offer any financial assistance that might
be required to meet present emergencies, and at the same time convey
sympathy to the husband and daughter in their sad bereavement.

"Lois, my dear," the banker had said to his wife, "remain a few days
with them if necessary. Make them comfortable, no matter what the
expense. If they had means they wouldn't need us, but now--well, no
difference about the why and wherefore--you just go and comfort and help
them materially and substantially."

It was in such a deed as this that the true nobility of Allen Miller's
character shone forth like a star of the brightest magnitude--a star
guaranteeing forgiveness of all his blunders and stupid attempts to curb
the impulsive and proud spirit of Roderick War-field Yet sympathy for
Gail and her father in no way condoned their poverty to his judgment
as a man of finance or reinstated the girl as an eligible match for the
young man. He would have been glad of tidings of Roderick--to have him
home again and the offensive matrimonial condition he had attached to
his offer of an appointment in the bank finally eliminated.

But there was no news, and meanwhile his wife had returned from her
mission, to report that the Holdens, while sincerely grateful, had
declined all offers of assistance. As Mrs. Miller described, it was the
girl herself who had declared, with the light of quiet self-reliance in
her eyes, that by working the ranch in Wyoming as she proposed to work
it there would be ample provision for her father's little luxuries and
her own simple needs.

So Allen Miller put Gail Holden out of mind. But he had many secret
heartaches over his rupture with Roderick, and every little stack of
mail matter laid upon his desk was eagerly turned over in the hope that
at last the wanderer's whereabouts would be disclosed.

CHAPTER IV.--THE COLLEGE WIDOW

STELLA RAIN belonged to one of the first families of Galesburg. Their
beautiful home, an old style Southern mansion, painted white with green
shutters, was just across from the college campus ground. It was the
usual fate of seniors about to pass out of Knox College to be in love,
avowedly or secretly, with this fair "college widow." She was petite of
form and face, and had a beautiful smile that radiated cheerfulness to
the scores of college boys. There was a merry-come-on twinkle in her
eyes that set the hearts of the young farmer lad students and the city
chaps as well, in tumultuous riot. Beneath it all she was kind of heart,
and it was this innate consideration for others that caused her to
introduce all the new boys and the old ones too, as they came to college
year after year, to Galesburg's fairest girls. She was ready to fit in
anywhere--a true "college widow" in the broadest sense of the term. Her
parents were wealthy and she had no greater ambition than to be a queen
among the college boys. Those who knew her best said that she would live
and die a spinster because of her inability to select someone from among
the hundreds of her admirers. Others said she had had a serious affair
of the heart when quite young. But that was several years before
Roderick Warfield had come upon the scene and been in due course smitten
by her charms. How badly smitten he only now fully realized when, after
nearly a year of absence, he found himself once again tête-à-tête with
her in the old familiar drawing-room of her home.

There had been an hour of pleasant desultory conversation, the exchange
of reminiscences and of little sympathetic confidences, a subtly growing
tension in the situation which she had somewhat abruptly broken by going
to the piano and dashing off a brilliant Hungarian rhapsody.

"And so you are determined to go West?" she inquired as she rose to
select from the cabinet another sheet of music.

"Yes," replied Roderick, "I'm going far West. I am going after a
fortune."

"How courageous you are," she replied, glancing at him over her shoulder
with merry, twinkling eyes, as if she were proud of his ambition.

"Stella," said Roderick, as she returned to the piano, where he was now
standing.

"Yes?" said she, looking up encouragingly.

"Why; you see, Stella--you don't mind me telling you--well, Stella, if I
find the lost gold mine--"

"If you find what?" she exclaimed.

"Oh, I mean," said Roderick in confusion, "I mean if I find a fortune.
Don't you know, if I get rich out in that western country--"

"And I hope and believe you will," broke in Stella, vivaciously.

"Yes--I say, if I do succeed, may I come back for you--yes, marry you,
and will you go out there with me to live?"

"Oh, Roderick, are you jesting now? You are just one of these
mischievous college boys trying to touch the heart of the little college
widow." She laughed gaily at him, as if full of disbelief.

"No," protested Roderick, "I am sincere."

Stella Rain looked at him a moment in admiration. He was tall and
strong--a veritable athlete. His face was oval and yet there was a
square-jawed effect in its moulding. His eyes were dark and luminous
and frank, and wore a look of matureness, of determined purpose, she had
never seen there before. Finally she asked: "Do you know, Roderick, how
old I am?"

As Roderick looked at her he saw there was plaintive regret in her dark
sincere eyes. There was no merry-come-on in them now; at last she was
serious.

"Why, no," said Roderick, "I don't know how old you are and I don't
care. I only know that you appeal to me more than any other woman I have
ever met, and all the boys like, you, and I love you, and I want you for
my wife."

"Sit down here by my side," said Stella. "Let me talk to you in great
frankness."

Roderick seated himself by her side and reaching over took one of her
hands in his. He fondled it with appreciation--it was small, delicate
and tapering.

"Roderick," she said, "my heart was given to a college boy when I was
only eighteen years old. He went away to his home in an eastern state,
and then he forgot me and married the girl he had gone to school with as
a little boy--during the red apple period of their lives. It pleased
his family better and perhaps it was better; and it will not please your
family, Roderick, if you marry me."

"My family be hanged," said Roderick with emphasis. "I have just had a
quarrel with my uncle, Allen Miller, and I am alone in the world. I have
no family. If you become my wife, why, we'll--. we'll be a family to
ourselves."

Stella smiled sadly and said: "You enthusiastic boy. How old are you,
Roderick?"

"I am twenty-four and getting older every day." They both laughed and
Stella sighed and said: "Oh, dear, how the years are running against
us--I mean running against me. No, no," she said, half to herself, "it
never can be--it is impossible."

"What," said Roderick, rising to his feet, and at the same moment she
also stood before him--"What's impossible? Is it impossible for you to
love me?"

"No, not that," said Stella, and he noticed tears in her eyes.
"No, Roderick," and she stood before him holding both his hands in
hers--"Listen," she said, "listen!"

"I am all attention," said Roderick.

"I will tell you how it will all end--we will never marry."

"Well, I say we shall marry," said Roderick. "If you will have me--if
you love me--for I love you better than all else on earth." He started
to take her in his arms and she raised her hand remonstratingly, and
said: "Wait! Here is what I mean," and she looked up at him helplessly.
"I mean,"--she was speaking slowly--"I mean that you believe today, this
hour, this minute that you want me for your wife."

"I certainly do," insisted Roderick, emphatically.

"Yes, but wait--wait until I finish. I will promise to be your wife,
Roderick--yes, I will promise--if you come for me I will marry you. But,
oh, Roderick,"--and there were tears this time in her voice as well as
in her eyes--"You will never come back--you will meet others not so old
as I am, for I am very, very old, and tonight I feel that I would give
worlds and worlds if they were mine to give, were I young once again.
Of course, in your youthful generosity you don't know what the
disparagement of age means between husband and wife, when the husband is
younger. A man may be a score of years older than a woman and all will
be well--if they grow old together. It is God's way. But if a woman
is eight or ten years older than her husband, it is all different. No,
Roderick, don't take me in your arms, don't even kiss me until I bid you
good-by when you start for that gold' mine of yours"--and as she said
this she tried to laugh in her old way.

"You seem to think," said Roderick in a half-vexed, determined tone,
"that I don't know my own mind--that I do not know my own heart. Why, do
you know, Stella, I have never loved any other girl nor ever had even a
love affair?"

She looked at him quickly and said: "Roderick, that's just the
trouble--you do not know--you cannot make a comparison, nor you won't
know until the other girl comes along. And then, then," she said
wearily, "I shall be weighed in the balance and found wanting,
because--oh, Roderick, I am so old, and I am so sorry--" and she turned
away and hid her face in her hands. "I believe in you and I could love
you with all my strength and soul. I am willing--listen Roderick," she
put up her hands protectingly, "don't be impatient--I am willing to
believe that you will be constant--that you will come back--I am willing
to promise to be your wife."

"You make me the happiest man in the world," exclaimed Roderick,
crushing her to him with a sense of possession.

"But there is one promise I am going to ask you to make," she said.

"Yes, yes," said he, "I will promise anything."

"Well, it is this: If the other girl should come along, don't fail to
follow the inclination of your heart, for I could not be your wife and
believe that the image of another woman was kept sacredly hidden away in
the deep recesses of your soul. Do you understand?" There was something
in her words--something in the way she spoke them--something in the
thought, that struck Roderick as love itself, and it pleased him,
because love is unselfish. Then he remembered that as yet he was
penniless--it stung him. However, the world was before him and he
must carve out a future and a fortune. It might take years, and in the
meantime what of Stella Rain, who was even now deploring her many years?
She would be getting older, and her chances, perhaps, for finding a home
and settling down with a husband would be less and less.

But he knew there was no such thought of selfishness on her part--her
very unselfishness appealed to him strongly and added a touch of
chivalry to his determination.

Stella Rain sank into a cushioned chair and rested her chin upon one
hand while, reaching to the piano keys with the other, she thrummed
them softly. Roderick walked back and forth slowly before her in deep
meditation. At last he paused and said: "I love you, I will prove I am
worthy. There is no time to lose. The hour grows late. I have but an
hour to reach my hotel, get my luggage and go to the depot I am going
West tonight I will come for you within one year, provided I make my
fortune; and I firmly believe in my destiny. If not--if I do not come--I
will release you from your betrothal, if it is your wish that I do so."

Stella Rain laughed more naturally, and the old "come-on" twinkling was
in her eyes again as she said: "Roderick, I don't want to be released,
because I love you very, very much. It is not that--it's because--well,
no difference--if you come, Roderick," and she raised her hand to him
from the piano--"if you come, and still want me to be your wife, I will
go with you and live in the mountains or the remotest corner of the
earth."

He took her hand in both his own and kissed it tenderly. "Very well,
Stella,--you make it plain to me. But you shall see--you shall see," and
he looked squarely into her beautiful eyes.

"Yes," she said, rising to her feet, "we shall see, Roderick, we shall
see. And do you know," the twinkling was now gone from her eyes once
more and she became serious again--"do you know, Roderick, it is the
dearest hope of my life that you will come? But I shall love you just as
much as I do now, Roderick, if for any cause--for whatever reason--you
do not come. Do you understand?"

"But," interposed Roderick, "we are betrothed, are we not?"

She looked at him and said, smiling half sadly: "Surely, Roderick, we
are betrothed."

He put his big strong hands up to her cheeks, lifted her face to his and
kissed her reverently. Then with a hasty good-by he turned and was gone.

As Roderick hurried across the old campus he felt the elation of a
gladiator. Of course, he would win in life's battle, and would return
for Stella Rain, the dearest girl in all the world. The stars
were twinkling bright, the moon in the heavens was in the last
quarter--bright moon and stars, fit companions for him in his
all-conquering spirit of optimism.

CHAPTER V.--WESTWARD HO!

AS the train rumbled along carrying Roderick back to Burlington, he was
lost in reverie and exultation. He was making plans for a mighty future,
into which now a romance of love was interwoven as well as the romance
of a mysterious gold mine awaiting rediscovery in some hidden valley
among rugged mountains. Yes; he would lose no further time in starting
out for Wyoming. The winning of the one treasure meant the winning
of the other--the making of both his own. As he dreamed of wealth
unbounded, there was always singing in his heart the name of Stella
Rain.

Next day he was aboard a westbound train, booked for Rawlins, Wyoming,
where, as his father's letter had directed, he was likely to find the
old frontiersman, Jim Rankin; perhaps also the other "cronies" referred
to by name, Tom Sun and Boney Earnest At Omaha a young westerner boarded
the train, and took a seat in the Pullman car opposite to Roderick. In
easy western style the two fell into conversation, and Roderick
soon learned that the newcomer's name was Grant Jones, that he was a
newspaper man by calling and resided in Dillon, Wyoming, right in the
midst of the rich copper mines.

"We are just over the mountain," explained Jones, "from the town of
Encampment, where the big smelter is located."

As the train sped along and they became better acquainted, Grant Jones
pointed out to Roderick a dignified gentleman with glasses and a gray
mustache occupying a seat well to the front of the car, and told
him that this particular individual was no other than the "Boss of
Montana"--Senator "Fence Everything" Greed. Jones laughed heartily at
the name.

"Of course, he is the U. S. Senator from Montana," continued Jones,
soberly, "and his name is F. E. Greed. His enemies out in Montana will
be highly pleased at the new name I have given him--'Fence Everything,'
because he has fenced in over 150,000 acres of Government land, it is
claimed, and run the actual home-settlers out of his fenced enclosures
while his immense herds of cattle trampled under foot and ate up the
poor evicted people's crops. Oh, he's some 'boss,' all right, all
right."

"Why," exclaimed Roderick, "that's lawlessness."

Grant Jones turned and looked at Roderick and said: "The rich are never
lawless, especially United States Senators--not out in Montana. Why,
bless your heart, they say the superintendent of his ranch is on the
payroll down at Washington at $1800 a year.

"Likewise the superintendent of the electric lighting plant which
Senator Greed owns, as well as the superintendent of his big general
store, are said to be on the government payroll.

"It has also been charged that his son was on the public payroll while
at college. Oh, no, it is not lawless; it is just a dignified form of
graft. Of course," Jones went on with arched eyebrows, "I remember one
case where a homesteader shot one of the Senator's fatted cattle--fine
stock, blooded, you know. It was perhaps worth $100. Of course the
man was arrested, had a 'fair trial' and is now doing time in the
penitentiary. In the meantime, his wife and little children have been
sent back East to her people. You see," said Jones, smiling, "this small
rancher, both poor in purse and without influence, was foolish enough
to lose his temper because five or six hundred head of Senator Greed's
cattle were driven by his cowboys over the rancher's land and the cattle
incidentally, as they went along, ate up his crops. Little thing to get
angry about, wasn't it?" and Jones laughed sarcastically.

"Well, don't the state conventions pass resolutions denouncing their U.
S. Senator for such cold-blooded tyrannizing methods?"

"If the state of Montana," replied Grant Jones, "should ever hold a
state convention of its representative people--the bone and sinew of
its sovereign citizens, why, they would not only retire Senator Greed to
private life, but they would consign him to the warmer regions."

"You surprise me," replied Roderick. "I supposed that every state held
conventions--delegates you know, from each county."

"They think they do," said Jones, winking one eye, "but they are only
ratification meetings. The 'Boss,'" he continued, nodding his head
towards Senator Greed, "has his faithful lieutenants in each precinct
of every county. His henchmen select the alleged delegates and when
they all get together in a so-called state convention they are by
pre-arrangement program men. The slate is fixed up by the 'Boss' and is
duly ratified without a hitch. Therefore instead of being a convention
representing the people it is a great big farce--a ratification picnic
where 'plums' are dealt out and the ears of any who become fractious
duly cuffed."

At Grand Island in the afternoon, during a stop while engines were
changed, Roderick left the train and stretched his legs by walking up
and down the depot platform. Here he saw Grant Jones in a new rôle.
Notwithstanding Jones was in rough western garb--khaki Norfolk coat,
trousers to match, and leather leggings--yet he was the center of
attraction for a bevy of young ladies. Two of these in particular were
remarkable for their beauty; both had the same burnished golden hair
and large brown eyes; they were almost identical in height and figure,
petite and graceful, dressed alike, so that anyone at a first glance
would have recognized them to be not only sisters but doubtless twins.

When the train was about ready to start, these two girls bade adieu to
their numerous friends and permitted Grant Jones with all the gallantry
of a Beau Brummel to assist them onto the car.

Later Grant Jones took great pains to assure Roderick that it was
a pleasure to introduce him to the Misses Barbara and Dorothy
Shields--"Two of our' mountain wild flowers," Grant said, laughing
pleasantly, "who reside with their people way over south in the Wyoming
hills, not far from Encampment, on one of the biggest cattle ranges in
the state."

Roderick, already captivated by the whole-souled, frank manner of Grant
Jones, now found himself much interested in the beautiful twin sisters
as well. Hour followed hour in bright and sprightly conversation, and
soon the tenderfoot who had been inclined to condole with himself as a
lonely stranger among strangers was feeling quite at home in the great
western world of hospitable welcome and good comradeship.

At an early hour next morning Grant Jones, the Shields girls and a dozen
other people left the train at the little town of Walcott. They extended
hearty invitations for Roderick to come over to southern Wyoming to
see the country, its great mines and the big smelter. "If you pay us
a visit," said Grant Jones, laughing, "I'll promise you a fine big
personal in the _Dillon Doublejack_, of which mighty organ of public
opinion I have the honor to be editor."

Roderick, with a bow of due reverence for his editorial majesty and a
bright smile for the sisters, promised that he likely would make the
trip before very long. Then he swung himself onto the already moving
train and continued his westward journey to Rawlins.

CHAPTER VI.--RODERICK MEETS JIM RANKIN

IT was seven o'clock the same morning when Roderick left the train at
Rawlins.

The raw, cold wind was blowing a terrific gale, the streets were
deserted save for a few half drunken stragglers who had been making a
night of it, going the rounds of saloons and gambling dens.

A bright-faced lad took charge of the mail bags, threw them into a push
cart and started rumbling away up the street. Warfield followed and
coming up with him inquired for a hotel.

"Right over there is the Ferris House," said the young fellow, nodding
his head in the direction indicated.

As Roderick approached the hotel he met a grizzled keen-eyed
frontiersman who saluted him with a friendly "Hello, partner, you be a
stranger in these yere parts, I'm assoomin'."

"Yes, I just arrived on this morning's train."

"Waal, my handle is Jim Rankin. Been prospectin' the range hereabouts
nigh thirty years; uster be sheriff of this yere county when people
wuz hostile a plenty--have the best livery stable today in Wyomin', and
always glad to see strangers loiterin' 'round and help 'em to git their
bearin's if I can be of service--you bet I am."

Thus early had Roderick encountered his father's old friend. He was
delighted, but for the present kept his own counsel. A more fitting time
and place must be found to tell the reason of his coming.

"Thank you," he contented himself with saying as he accepted the
frontiersman's hand of welcome; "glad to meet you, Mr. Rankin."

"Here, boy," shouted the latter to an attache of the hotel, "take care
of this yere baggage; it belongs to this yere gentleman, a dangnation
good friend uv mine. He'll be back soon fur breakfast. Come on,
stranger, let's go over to Wren's. I'm as dry as a fish."

Roderick smiled and turning about, accompanied his new discovery down
the street to Wren's. As they walked along Rankin said: "Here's my barn
and here's the alley. We'll turn in here and get into Wren's by the back
door. I never pester the front door. Lots uv fellers git a heap careless
with their artillery on front steps that are docile 'nuff inside."
As they passed through a back gate, Jim Rankin, the typical old-time
westerner, pushed his hat well back on his head, fished out of his
pocket a pouch of "fine cut" tobacco, and stowing away a large wad in
his mouth began masticating rapidly, like an automobile on the low
gear. Between vigorous "chaws" he observed that the sun would be up in a
"minute" and then the wind would go down. "Strange but true as gospel,"
he chuckled--perhaps at his superior knowledge of the West--"when the
sun comes up the wind goes down."

He expectorated a huge pit-tew of tobacco juice at an old ash barrel,
wiped his iron gray mustache with the back of his hand, pushed open the
back door of the saloon and invited Roderick to enter.

A fire was burning briskly in a round sheet iron stove, and a half dozen
wooden-backed chairs were distributed about a round-topped table covered
with a green cloth.

Rankin touched a press button, and when a white-aproned waiter responded
and stood with a silent look of inquiry on his face the frontiersman
cleared his throat and said: "A dry Martini fur me; what pizen do you
nominate, partner?"

"Same," was Roderick's rather abbreviated reply as he took in the
surroundings with a furtive glance.

As soon as the waiter retired to fill the orders, Roderick's new found
friend pulled a coal scuttle close to his chair to serve as a receptacle
for his tobacco expectorations, and began: "You see, speakin' wide open
like, I know all these yere fellers--know 'em like a book. Out at the
bar in front is a lot uv booze-fightin' sheep herders makin' things gay
and genial, mixin' up with a lot uv discharged railroad men. Been makin'
some big shipments uv sheep east, lately, and when they get tumultuous
like with a whole night's jag of red liquor under their belt, they
forgit about the true artickle uv manhood and I cut 'em out. Hope
they'll get away afore the cattle men come in from over north, otherwise
there'll be plenty uv ugly shootin'. Last year we made seven new graves
back there," and he jerked his thumb over his shoulder, "seven graves
as a result uv a lot uv sheep herders and cow punchers tryin' to do the
perlite thing here at Wren's parlors the same night They got to shootin'
in a onrestrained fashion and a heap careless. You bet if I wuz sheriff
uv this yere county agin I'd see to it that law and order had the long
end uv the stick--though I must allow they did git hostile and hang
Big Nose George when I wuz in office," he added after a pause. Then he
chuckled quietly to himself, for the moment lost in retrospection.

Presently the waiter brought in the drinks and when he retired Rankin
got up very cautiously, tried the door to see if it was tightly shut.
Coming back to the table and seating himself he lifted his glass, but
before drinking said: "Say, pard, I don't want to be too presumin', but
what's your handle?"

Roderick felt that the proper moment had arrived, and went straight to
his story.

"My name is Roderick Warfield. I am the son of John Warfield with whom
I believe you had some acquaintance a number of years ago. My father is
dead, as you doubtless may have heard--died some fourteen years since.
He left a letter for me which only recently came into my possession,
and in the letter he spoke of three men--Jim Rankin, Tom Sun and Boney
Earnest."

As Roderick was speaking, the frontiersman reverently returned his
cocktail to the table.

"Geewhillikins!" he exclaimed, "you the son uv John Warfield! Well, I'll
be jiggered. This just nachurly gits on my wind. Shake, young man."
And Jim Rankin gave Roderick's hand the clinch of a vise; "I'm a mighty
sight more than delighted to see you, and you can count on my advice and
help, every day in the week and Sundays thrown in. As you're a stranger
in these parts, I'm assoomin' you'll need it a plenty, you bet. Gee, but
I'm as glad to see you as I'd be to see a brother. Let's drink to the
memory uv your good father."

He again lifted his cocktail and Roderick joined him by picking up a
side glass of water.

"What?" asked Rankin, "not drinkin' yer cocktail? What's squirmin' in
yer vitals?"

"I drink nothing stronger than water," replied Roderick, looking
his father's old friend squarely in the eyes. Thus early in their
association he was glad to settle this issue once and for all time.

"Shake again," said Rankin, after tossing off his drink at a single
swallow and setting down his empty glass, "you sure 'nuff are the son
uv John Warfield. Wuz with him off and on fur many a year and he never
drank spirits under no circumstances. You bet I wuz just nachurly so
dangnation flabbergasted at meetin' yer I got plumb locoed and sure did
fergit. Boney and Tom and me often speak uv him to this day, and they'll
be dangnation glad to see you."

"So you're all three still in the ring?" queried Roderick with a smile.

"Bet yer life," replied Rankin sturdily. "Why, Tom Sun and Boney Earnest
and me have been chums fur nigh on to thirty years. They're the best
scouts that ever hunted in the hills. They're the chaps who put up my
name at the convenshun, got me nominated and then elected me sheriff of
this yere county over twenty-five years ago. Gosh but I'm certainly glad
to see yer and that's my attitood." He smiled broadly.

"Now, Warfield," he continued, "what yer out here fur? But first, hold
on a minute afore yer prognosticate yer answer. Just shove that 'tother
cocktail over this way--dangnation afeerd you'll spill it; no use
letting it go to waste."

"I've come," replied Roderick, smiling and pushing the cocktail across
to Jim Rankin, "to grow up with the country. A young fellow when he gets
through college days has got to get out and do something, and some way
I've drifted out to Wyoming to try and make a start. I have lots of good
health, but precious little money."

Jim Rankin drank the remaining cocktail, pulled his chair a little
closer to Roderick's and spoke in a stage whisper: "You know, I'm
assoomin', what yer father was huntin' fur when he got hurt?"

Roderick flushed slightly and remained silent for a moment. Was it
possible that his father's old friend, Jim Rankin, knew of the lost
mine? Finally he replied: "Well, yes, I know in a general way."

"Don't speak too dangnation loud," enjoined Rankin. "Come on and we'll
hike out uv this and go into one uv the back stalls uv my livery stable.
This's no place to talk about sich things--even walls have ears."

As they went out again by the back door the morning sun was looking at
them from the rim of the eastern hills. Side by side and in silence they
walked along the alley to the street, then turned and went into a big
barn-like building bearing a sign-board inscribed: "Rankin's Livery,
Feed and Sale Stable."

Although there was not a soul in sight, Rankin led his new acquaintance
far back to the rear of the building. As they passed, a dozen or more
horses whinnied, impatient for their morning feed.

Cautiously and without a word being spoken they went into an empty stall
in a far corner, and there in a deep whisper, Rankin said: "I know the
hull shootin' match about that 'ere lost gold mine, but Tom and Boney
don't--they've been peevish, good and plenty, two or three different
times thinkin' I know'd suthin' they didn't. Not a blamed thing does
anybody know but me, you bet I went with your father on three different
trips, but we didn't quite locate the place. I believe it's on Jack
Creek or Cow Creek--maybe furder over--don't know which, somewhere this
side or t'other side of Encampment River. You kin bet big money I kin
help a heap--a mighty lot But say nothin' to nobody--specially to
these soopercilious high-steppin' chaps 'round here--not a dangnation
word--keep it mum. This is a razzle-dazzle just 'tween you an' me, young
man."

A silence followed, and the two stood there looking at each other.
Presently Roderick said: "I believe I'll go over to the hotel and get
some breakfast; this western air gives one a ravenous appetite."

Then they both laughed a little as if anxious to relieve an embarrassing
situation, and went out to the street together. Jim knew in his heart
he had been outclassed; he had shown his whole hand, the other not one
single card.

"All right," Rankin finally said, as if an invitation had been extended
to him. "All right, I'll jist loiter along with yer over to'rd the
hotel."

"At another time," observed Roderick, "we will talk further about my
father's errand into this western country."

"That's the dope that sure 'nuff suits me, Mr. War-field," replied
Rankin. "Whatever you say goes. Yer can unbosom yerself to me any time
to the limit. I've got a dozen good mining deals to talk to you about;
they're dandies--a fortune in every one uv 'em--'a bird in every shell,'
I might say," and Rankin laughed heartily at his happy comparison.
"Remember one thing, Warfield,"--he stopped and took hold of the lapel
of Roderick's coat, and again spoke in a whisper--"this yere town is
full uv 'hot air' merchants. Don't have nuthin' to do with 'em--stand
pat with me and I'll see by the great horn spoon the worst you get
will be the best uv everythin' we tackle. Well, so long until after
breakfast; I'll see you later." And with this Rankin turned and
walked briskly back to his stables, whistling a melody from the "Irish
Washerwoman" as he went along.

Arriving at his stables he lighted a fire in a drumshaped stove, threw
his cud of tobacco away and said: "Hell, I wish this young Warfield had
money. I've got a copper prospect within three mile uv this here town
that'll knock the spots out uv the Ferris-Haggerty mine all holler.
Geewhillikins, it'll jist nachur-ally make all the best mines in Wyomin'
look like small-sized Shetland ponies at a Perch'ron draft horse show.
You bet that's what I've got."

After feeding his horses he came back to the livery barn office, now
quite warm and comfortable, pulled up an old broken backed chair, sat
down and lit his pipe. After a few puffs he muttered half aloud: "Expect
I'm the only man in Wyomin' who remembers all the early hist'ry and
traditions about that cussed lost mine. I've hunted the hills high and
low, north, south, east and west, and dang my buttons if I can imagine
where them blamed nuggets came from. And my failure used to make me at
times a plenty hostile and peevish. John Warfield brought three of 'em
out with him on his last trip. He gave Tom one, Boney one and me one."

Thrusting his hand into his pocket Rankin produced a native nugget of
gold, worn smooth and shiny, and looked at it long in silent meditation.
It was a fine specimen of almost pure gold, and was worth perhaps five
and twenty dollars.

Presently the old frontiersman brought his fist down with a startling
thump on his knee and said aloud: "I'll be blankety-blanked if I don't
believe in that dangnation fairy story yet. You bet I do, and I'll help
John Warfield's boy find it, by the great horn spoon I will, if it takes
every horse in the stable."

Jim Rankin relit his pipe, smoked vigorously and thought. The power of
silence was strong upon him. The restless spirit of the fortune hunter
was again surging in his blood and awaking slumbering half-forgotten
hopes--yes, tugging at his heart-strings and calling to him to forsake
all else and flee to the hills.

Rankin was a character, a representative of the advance band of sturdy
trail-blazers of the West--tender-hearted as a child, generous to a
fault, ready to divide his last crust with a friend, yet quick to resent
an injury, and stubborn as a bullock when roused to self-defense. There
was nothing cunning about him, nothing of greed and avarice, no spirit
of envy for the possession of things for the things' sake. But for him
there was real joy in the mad pursuit of things unattainable--a joy that
enthralled and enthused him with the fervor of eternal youth. His was
the simple life of the hills, loving his few chums and turning his back
on all whom he disliked or mistrusted.

Other men and greater men there may be, but it was men of Jim Rankin's
type that could build, and did build, monuments among the wild western
waste of heat-blistered plains and gaunt rock-ribbed mountains, men who
braved the wilderness and there laid the first foundation stones of
a splendid civilization--splendid, yet even now only in its first
beginnings, a civilization that means happy homes and smiling fields
where before all was barrenness and desolation.

CHAPTER VII--GETTING ACQUAINTED

RODERICK spent a few days in Rawlins, improving his acquaintance with
Jim Rankin and making a general survey of the situation. The ex-sheriff
proved to be a veritable repository of local information, and Roderick
soon knew a little about everyone and everything in the district. He
learned that Tom Sun, one of his father's old associates, had from small
beginnings come to be the largest sheep owner in the state; he was rich
and prosperous. With Boney Earnest, however, the other friend mentioned
in the letter, the case was different. Boney had stuck for years to
prospecting and desultory mining without achieving any substantial
success, but had eventually become a blast furnace man in the big
smelting plant at Encampment. There he had worked his way up to a
foreman's position, and with his practical knowledge of all the ores
in the region was the real brains of the establishment, as Jim Rankin
forcibly declared. He had a large family which absorbed all his earnings
and always kept him on the ragged edge of necessity.

Rankin himself was not too well fixed--just making a more or less
precarious subsistence out of his stage line and livery stable business.
But he had several big mining deals in hand or at least in prospect, one
or other of which was "dead sure to turn up trumps some day." The "some
day" appeared to be indefinitely postponed, but meanwhile Jim had the
happiness of living in the genial sunshiny atmosphere of hope. And the
coming of Roderick had changed this mellowed sunshine into positive
radiance, rekindling all the old fires of enthusiasm in the heart of the
old-time prospector. With Roderick the first surge of eager impetuosity
had now settled down into quiet determination. But old Jim Rankin's
blood was at fever-heat in his eagerness to find the hidden valley. When
alone with Roderick he could talk of nothing else.

Roderick, however, had shrewdly and cautiously summed up the measure of
his usefulness. Jim Rankin had not the necessary capital to finance
a systematic search among the mountain fastnesses where nature so
jealously guarded her secret. Nor could he leave his horses and his
livery business for any long period, however glibly he might talk about
"going out and finding the blamed place." As for any precise knowledge
of where the quest should be commenced, he had none. He had shared in
the frequent attempts and failures of Roderick's father, and after a
lapse of some fifteen or sixteen years had even a slimmer chance now
than then of hitting the spot. So, all things duly considered, Roderick
had adhered to his original resolution of playing a lone hand. Not even
to Rankin did he show his father's letter and map; their relations were
simply an understanding that the old frontiersman would help Roderick
out to the best of his power whenever opportunity offered and in all
possible ways, and that for services rendered there would be liberal
recompense should golden dreams come to be realized.

Another reason weighed with Roderick in holding to a policy of
reticence. Despite Jim's own frequent cautions to "keep mum--say nothing
to nobody," he himself was not the best hand at keeping a secret,
especially after a few cocktails had lubricated his natural loquacity.
At such moments, under the mildly stimulating influence, Jim dearly
loved to hint at mysterious knowledge locked up in his breast. And in
a mining camp vague hints are liable to become finger posts and
signboards--the very rocks and trees seem to be possessed of ears. So
young Warfield was at least erring on the safe side in keeping his own
counsel and giving no unnecessary confidences anywhere.

There was nothing to be gained by remaining longer at Rawlins.
Roderick's slender finances rendered it imperative that he should find
work of some kind--work that would enable him to save a sufficient stake
for the prospecting venture, or give him the chance to search out the
proper moneyed partner who would be ready to share in the undertaking.
And since he had to work it would be well that his work should, if
possible, be on the range, where while earning his maintenance and
husbanding his resources, he could at the same time be spying out the
land and gaining invaluable experience. So he had on several occasions
discussed with Jim Rankin the chances of finding a temporary job on one
of the big cattle ranches, and after one of these conversations had
come his decision to move at once from Rawlins. His first "voyage of
discovery" would be to Encampment, the busy smelter town. He remembered
the cordial invitation extended to him by Grant Jones, the newspaper
man, and felt sure he would run across him there. From the first he
had felt strongly drawn to this buoyant young spirit of the West, and
mingled with his desire for such comradeship was just a little
longing, maybe, to glimpse again the fair smiling faces of the twin
sisters--"mountain wild flowers" as Grant Jones had so happily described
Barbara and Dorothy Shields.

So one fine morning Roderick found himself seated beside Jim Rankin on
the driver's seat of an old-fashioned Concord stage coach. With a crack
of Jim's whip, the six frisky horses, as was their wont at the beginning
of a journey, started off at a gallop down the street. Five or six
passengers were stowed away in the coach. But these were nothing to Jim
Rankin and Roderick Warfield. They could converse on their own affairs
during the long day's drive. The old frontiersman was, as usual, in
talkative mood.

"By gunnies," he exclaimed sotto-voce, as they wheeled along, "we'll
find that pesky lost gold mine, don't you forget it. I know pretty
dangnation near its location now. You bet I do and I'll unbosom myself
and take you to it--jist you and me. I'm thinkin' a heap these yere
days, you bet I am."

Along in the afternoon they crossed over Jack Creek, an important stream
of water flowing from the west into the North Platte River. Jim Rankin
stopped the stage coach and pointed out to our hero the "deadline"
between the cattle and sheep range. "All this yere territory," said
Jim, "lying north uv Jack Creek is nachure's sheep pasture and all lyin'
south uv Jack is cattle range."

"It's well known," he went on, "where them blamed pesky sheep feed and
graze, by gunnies, vegetation don't grow agin successful for several
years. The sheep not only nachurlly eat the grass down to its roots,
but their sharp hoofs cut the earth into fine pulp fields uv dust. Jack
Creek is the dividin' line--the 'dead line.'"

"What do you mean by the 'dead line'?" asked Roderick.

"The 'dead line,'" replied old Jim as he clucked to his horses and swung
his long whip at the off-leader--"the 'dead line' is where by the great
horn spoon the sheep can't go any furder south and the cattle darsn't
come any furder north, or when they do, Hell's a-pop-pin.'"

"What happens?"

"What happens?" repeated the frontiersman as he expectorated a huge
pit-tew of tobacco juice at a cactus that stood near the roadway. "Why,
by gunnies, hundreds uv ondefensible sheep have been actooally clubbed
to death in a single night by raidin' cowboys and the sheep-herders shot
to death while sleepin' in their camp wagons: and their cookin' outfit,
which is usually in one end uv the wagon, as well as the camp wagons,
burned to conceal evidence of these dastardly murders. Oh, they sure do
make things gay and genial like."

"Astonishing! The cowboys must be a pretty wicked lot," interrogated
Roderick.

"Well, it's about six uv one and half a dozen uv the other. You see
these pesky sheep herders and the cowboys are all torn off the same
piece uv cloth. Many a range rider has been picked from his hoss by
these sheep men hidden away in these here rocky cliffs which overlook
the valley. They sure 'nuff get tumultuous."

"But what about the law?" inquired Roderick. "Does it afford no
protection?"

Jim laughed derisively, pushed his hat far back and replied: "Everybody
that does any killin' in these here parts sure does it in self-defense."
He chuckled at his superior knowledge of the West. "Leastways, that's
what the evidence brings out afore the courts. However, Tom Sun says
the fussin' is about over with. Last year more'n twenty cattle men were
sentenced to the pen'tentiary up in the Big Horn country. Sort uv an
offset fur about a score uv sheep men that's been killed by the cow
punchers while tendin' their flocks on the range. You bet they've been
mixin' things up with artil'ry a heap."

"I clearly perceive," said Roderick, "that your sympathies are with the
cattle men."

Jim Rankin turned quickly and with his piercing black eyes glared at
Roderick as if he would rebuke him for his presumption.

"Young man, don't be assoomin'. I ain't got no sympathy fur neither one
uv 'em. I don't believe in murder and I don't believe very much in the
pen'tentiary. 'Course when I was sheriff, I had to do some shootin'
but my shootin' wuz all within the law. No, I don't care a cuss one way
or 'tother. There are lots uv good fellers ridin' range. Expect yer will
be ridin' before long. Think I can help yer get a job on the Shields
ranch; if I can't Grant Jones can. And ther's lots uv mighty good
sheep-herders too. My old pal, Tom Sun, is the biggest sheep-man in this
whole dang-nation country and he's square, he is. So you see I ain't got
no preference, 'tho' I do say the hull kit and bilin' uv 'em could be
improved. Yes, I'm nootral. Put that in yer pipe and smoke it, fur it
goes dangnation long ways in this man's country to be nootral, and
don't git to furgit'n it."

It was late in the afternoon when they neared the little town of
Encampment. Old Jim Rankin began to cluck to his horses and swing his
whip gently and finally more pronouncedly.

If it is the invariable habit of stage drivers at the point of departure
to start off their horses in a full swinging gallop, it is an equally
inviolable rule, when they approach the point of arrival, that they
come in with a whoop and a hooray. These laws are just as immutable
as ringing the bell or blowing the locomotive whistle when leaving or
nearing a station. So when Jim Rankin cracked his whip, all six horses
leaned forward in their collars, wheeled up the main street in a
swinging gallop, and stopped abruptly in front of the little hotel.

As Roderick climbed down from the driver's seat he was greeted with
a hearty "Hello, Warfield, welcome to our city." The speaker was none
other than Grant Jones himself, for his newspaper instincts always
brought him, when in town, to meet the stage.

The two young men shook hands with all the cordiality of old friends.

"If you cannot get a room here at the hotel, you can bunk with me,"
continued Grant. "I have a little shack down towards the smelter."

Roderick laughed and said: "Suppose, then, we don't look for a room.
I'll be mighty pleased to carry my baggage to your shack now."

"All right, that's a go," said Grant; and together they started down the
street.

Grant Jones' bachelor home consisted of a single room--a hastily
improvised shack, as he had correctly called it, that had cost no very
large sum to build. It was decorated with many trophies of college
life and of the chase. Various college pennants were on the walls,
innumerable pipes, some rusty antiquated firearms, besides a brace
of pistols which Jim Rankin had given to Grant, supposed to be the
identical flint-locks carried by Big Nose George, a desperado of the
early days.

"You see," explained Grant as he welcomed his guest, "this is my
Encampment residence. I have another shack over at Dillon where I edit
my paper, the _Dillon Doublejack_. I spend part of my time in one
place and part in the other. My business is in Dillon but social
attractions--Dorothy Shields, you may have already guessed--are over
this way." And he blushed red as he laughingly made the confession.

"And talking of the Shields, by the way," resumed Grant. "I want to tell
you I took the liberty of mentioning your name to the old man. He is
badly in need of some more hands on the ranch--young fellows who can
ride and are reliable."

Roderick was all alert.

"The very thing I'm looking for," he said eagerly. "Would he give me a
place, do you think?"

"I'm certain of it. In fact I promised to bring you over to the ranch as
soon as you turned up at Encampment."

"Mighty kind of you, old fellow," remarked Roderick, gratefully and with
growing familiarity.

"Well, you can take that bed over there," said the host. "This one is
mine. You'll excuse the humble stretchers, I know. Then after you
have opened your grip and made yourself a little at home, we'll take a
stroll. I fancy that a good big porterhouse won't come amiss after your
long day's drive. We've got some pretty good restaurants in the town. I
suppose you've already discovered that a properly cooked juicy Wyoming
steak is hard to beat, eh, you pampered New Yorker?"

Roderick laughed as he threw open his valise and arranged his brushes
and other toilet appurtenances on the small table that stood at the head
of the narrow iron stretcher.

A little later, when night had fallen, the young men went out into the
main street to dine and look over the town. It was right at the edge of
the valley with mountains rising in a semi-circle to south and west, a
typical mountain settlement.

"You see everything is wide open," said Grant, as he escorted Roderick
along the streets, arm linked in arm. For they had just discovered that
they belonged to the same college fraternity--Kappa Gamma Delta, so the
bonds of friendship had been drawn tighter still.

"You have a great town here," observed Roderick.

"We have about 1200 to 1500 people and 18 saloons!" laughed the other.
"And every saloon has a gambling lay-out--anything from roulette to
stud-poker. Over yonder is Brig Young's place. Here is Southpaw's
Bazaar. The Red Dog is a little farther along; the Golden Eagle is one
of the largest gambling houses in the town. We'll have our supper first,
and then I'll take you over to Brig Young's and introduce you."

As they turned across the street they met a man coming toward them. He
was straight and tall, rather handsome, but a gray mustache made him
seem older than his years.

"Hello, here is Mr. Grady. Mr. Grady, I want to introduce you to a
newcomer. This is Mr. Roderick Warfield."

"Glad to meet you, Mr. Warfield," said Grady in a smooth voice and
with an oleaginous smile. To Roderick the face seemed a sinister one;
instinctively he felt a dislike for the man.

"Your town is quite up-to-date, with all its brilliant electric lights,"
he observed with a polite effort at conversation.

"Yes," replied Grady, "but it is the monthly pay roll of my big smelting
company that supports the whole place."

There was a pomposity in the remark and the look that accompanied it
which added to Roderick's feelings of repulsion.

"Oh, I don't know," interposed Grant Jones, in a laughing way. "We
have about five hundred prospectors up in the hills who may not yet
be producers, but their monthly expenditures run up into pretty big
figures."

"Of course, that amounts to something; but think of my pay roll,"
replied Grady, boastingly. "Almost a thousand men on my pay roll.
We have the biggest copper mine in the Rocky Mountain region, Mr.
War-field. Come down some day and see the smelter," he added as he
extended his hand in farewell greeting, with a leer rather than a smile
on his face. "I'll give you a pass."

"Thank you," said Roderick coldly. And the two friends resumed their
walk toward Brig Young's saloon.

"I don't mind telling you," remarked Grant, "that Grady is the most
pompous, arrogant and all-round hated man in this mining camp."

"He looks the part," replied Roderick, and they both laughed.

A minute later they were seated in a cosy little restaurant. Ample
justice was done to the succulent Wyoming porterhouse, and cigars were
lighted over the cups of fragrant coffee that completed the meal. Then
the young men resumed their peregrinations pursuant to the programme of
visiting Brig Young's place, certified by Grant Jones to be one of the
sights of the town.

The saloon proved to be an immense room with a bar in the corner near
the entrance. Roulette tables, faro lay-outs and a dozen poker tables
surrounded with feverish players were all running full blast, while
half a hundred men were standing around waiting to take the place of any
player who went broke or for any reason dropped out of the game.

"I guess nearly all the gambling is done here, isn't it?" asked
Roderick.

"Not by a big sight. There are eighteen joints of this kind, and they
are all running wide open and doing business all the time."

"When do they close?" inquired Roderick.

"They never close," replied Grant. "Brig Young boasts that he threw
the key away when this place opened, and the door has never been locked
since."

As they spoke their attention was attracted to one corner of the gaming
room. Seven players were grouped around a table, in the centre of which
was stacked a pile of several thousand dollars in gold pieces. Grant and
Roderick strolled over.

A score of miners and cowboys were standing around watching the game.
One of them said to Grant Jones: "It's a jack pot and they're dealing
for openers."

Finally someone opened the pot for $500. "It's an all-fired juicy
pot and I wouldn't think of openin' it for less." Tom Lester was the
player's name, as Grant whispered to Roderick.

"I'll stay," said One-Eyed Joe.

"So will I," said another.

The players were quickly assisted with cards--four refused to come in,
and the other three, having thrown their discards into the deck, sat
facing each other ready for the final struggle in determining
the ownership of the big pot before them. It was a neck and neck
proposition. First one would see and raise and then another would see
and go better. Finally, the showdown came, and it created consternation
when it was discovered that there were five aces in sight.

Instantly Tom Lester jerked his Colt's revolver from his belt and laid
it carefully down on top of his three aces and said: "Steady, boys,
don't move a muscle or a hand until I talk." The onlookers pushed back
and quickly enlarged the circle.

"Sit perfectly still, gentlemen," said Tom Lester, quietly and in a low
tone of voice, with his cocked revolver in front of him. "I'm not makin'
any accusations or loud talk--I'm not accusin' anybody in particular of
anything. Keep perfectly cool an' hear a cool determined man talk. Far
be it from me to accuse anyone of crooked dealin' or holdin' high cards
up their sleeves."

As he spoke he looked at One-Eyed Joe who had both a reputation at card
skin games and a record of several notches on his gun handle.

"I want to say," Lester continued, "that I recognize in the game we're
playin' every man is a perfect gentleman and it's not Tom Lester who
suspicions any impure motives or crooked work.

"We will now order a new deck of cards," said Tom while fire was
flashing out of his steel gray eyes. "We will play this game to a
finish, by God, and the honest winner will take the stakes. But I will
say here and now so there may be no misunderstandin' and without further
notice, that if a fifth ace shows up again around this table, I'll shoot
his other eye out." And he looked straight at One-Eyed Joe, who never
quivered or moved a muscle.

"This ends my remarks concernin' the rules. How d'ye like 'em, Joe?"

"Me?" said Joe, looking up in a surprised way with his one eye. "I'm
'lowin' you have made yer position plain--so dangnation plain that even
a blind man kin see the pint."

The new deck was brought and the game went on in silence. After a few
deals the pot was again opened, and was in due course won by a player
who had taken no part in the previous mix-up, without a word falling
from the lips of either Tom Lester or One-Eyed Joe.

Roderick and Grant moved away.

"Great guns," exclaimed the former. "But that's a rare glimpse of
western life."

"Oh, there are incidents like that every night," replied Grant, "and
shooting too at times. Have a drink?" he added as they approached the
bar.

"Yes, I will have a great big lemonade."

"Well," laughed Grant, "I'll surprise both you and my stomach by taking
the same."

As they sipped their drinks, Grant's face became a little serious as
he said: "I'm mighty glad you have come. You seem to be of my own kind.
Lots of good boys out here, but they are a little rough and many of them
are rather careless. Guess I am getting a little careless myself. There
are just two men in these mountains who have a good influence over the
boys. One is Major Buell Hampton. Everybody trusts him. By the way, I
must introduce you to him. He is one of the grandest men I have ever
met" As Grant said this he brought his fist down decisively on the bar.

"The other is the Reverend Stephen Grannon," he went on, "the travelling
horseback preacher--carries saddle bags, and all that. Why, do you know,
the boys are so respectful to Reverend Grannon that they hire a man to
go up and down the street ringing a bell, and they close up all their
places for an hour every time he comes to town. He preaches mostly in
the big tent you perhaps saw further up the street, at other times
in the little church. The boys are mighty respectful to him, and
all because they know he goes about doing good. If anyone falls ill,
Reverend Grannon is the first to offer help. He visits the poor and
cheers them with a spirit of hope. He never leaves town without going
into every saloon and shaking hands with the barkeepers, giving them
the same kind of advice but not in the same way--the same advice that we
used to get when we stood around our mother's knee before we had learned
the sorrows of the big world."

For a moment Grant was serious. Then looking up at Roderick, he laughed
and said: "We all have to think of those old days once in a while, don't
we?"

Roderick nodded gravely.

"Now I come to think of it," said Grant, "the present moment's a very
good time. We'll go down and call on one of Nature's noblemen. He is
somewhat of an enigma. You cannot tell how old he is by looking at
him. He may have seen fifty years or a hundred and fifty--the Lord
only knows, for nobody in this camp has any idea. But you will meet
a magnificent character. Come along. I'm going to present you to my
friend, Major Buell Hampton, about whom I've just been speaking. I guess
we'll catch him at home."

CHAPTER VIII.--A PHILOSOPHER AMONG THE MOUNTAINS

AS THE two young men walked down the brilliantly lighted main street of
Encampment, Grant Jones explained that the water had been dammed several
miles up the south fork of the Encampment river and conducted in a
California red-wood pipe down to the smelter plant for power purposes;
and that the town of Encampment was lighted at a less cost per capita
than any other town in the world. It simply cost nothing, so to speak.

Grant had pointed out several residences of local celebrities, but at
last a familiar name drew Roderick's special attention--the name of one
of his father's old friends.

"This is Boney Earnest's home," Grant was remarking. "He is the fellow
who stands in front of the furnaces at the smelter in a sleeveless
shirt and with a red bandana around his neck. They have a family of ten
children, every one of them as bright as a new silver dollar. Oh, we
have lots of children here and by the way a good public school. You see
that log house just beyond? That is where Boney Earnest used to live
when he first came into camp--before his brood was quite so numerous. It
now belongs to Major Buell Hampton. It is not much to look at, but just
wait until you get inside."

"Then this Major Hampton, I presume, has furnished it up in great
shape?"

"No, nothing but rough benches, a table, some chairs and a few shelves
full of books. What I mean is that Major Hampton's personality is there
and that beats all the rich furniture and all the bric-à-brac on earth.
As a college man you will appreciate him."

Without ceremony Grant rapped vigorously at the door and received a loud
response to "come in." At the far end of a room that was perhaps 40 feet
long by 20 feet in width was an open fireplace in which huge logs of
wood were burning. Here Major Hampton was standing with his back to the
fire and his hands crossed behind him.

As his visitors entered, the Major said in courtly welcome: "Mr. Grant
Jones, I am glad to see you." And he advanced with hand extended.

"Major, let me introduce you to a newcomer, Roderick Warfield. We belong
to the same 'frat.'"

"Mr. Warfield," responded the Major, shaking the visitor's hand, "I
welcome you not only to the camp but to my humble dwelling."

He led them forward and provided chairs in front of the open fire. On
the center table was a humidor filled with tobacco and beside it lay
several pipes.

"Mr. Warfield," observed the Major, speaking with a marked southern
accent, "I am indeed pleased, suh, to meet anyone who is a friend of Mr.
Jones. I have found him a most delightful companion and I hope you will
make free to call on me often. Interested in mining, I presume?"

"Well," replied Roderick, "interested, yes, in a way. But tentative
arrangements have been made for me to join the cowboy brigade. I am to
ride the range if Mr. Shields is pleased with me, as our friend here
seems to think he will be. He is looking for some more cowboys and my
name has been mentioned to him."

"Yes," concurred Grant, "Mr. Shields needs some more cowboys very badly,
and as Warfield is accustomed to riding, I'm quite sure he'll fill the
bill."

"Personally," observed the Major, "I am very much interested in mining.
It has a great charm for me. The taking out of wealth from the bosom of
the earth--wealth that has never been tainted by commercialism--appeals
to me very much."

"Then I presume you are doing some mining yourself."

"No," replied the Major. "If I had capital, doubtless I would be in the
mining business. But my profession, if I may term it so, is that of a
hunter. These hills and mountains are pretty full of game, and I manage
to find two or three deer a week. My friend and next door neighbor, Mr.
Boney Earnest, and his family consisting of a wife and ten
children, have been very considerate of me and I have undertaken the
responsibility of furnishing the meat for their table. Are you fond of
venison, Mr. Warfield?"

"I must confess," said Roderick, "I have never tasted venison."

"Finest meat in the world," responded the Major. "Of course," he
went on, "I aim to sell about one deer a week, which brings me a fair
compensation. It enables me to buy tobacco and ammunition," and he
laughed good naturedly at his limited wants.

"One would suppose," interjected Grant Jones, "that the Boney Earnest
family must be provided with phenomenal appetites if they eat the meat
of two deer each week. But if you knew the Major's practice of supplying
not less than a dozen poor families with venison because they are needy,
you would understand why he does not have a greater income from the sale
of these antlered trophies of the hills."

The Major waved the compliment aside and lit his pipe. As he threw his
head well back after the pipe was going, Roderick was impressed that
Major Buell Hampton most certainly was an exceptional specimen of
manhood. He was over six feet tall, splendidly proportioned, and perhaps
weighed considerably more than two hundred pounds.

There were little things here and there that gave an insight into the
character of the man. Hanging on the wall was a broad-brimmed slouch hat
of the southern planter style. Around his neck the Major wore a heavy
gold watch guard with many a link. To those who knew him best, as
Roderick came subsequently to learn, this chain was symbolical of his
endless kindnesses to the poor--notwithstanding his own poverty, of such
as he had he freely gave; like the chain his charities seemed linked
together without a beginning--without an end. His well-brushed shoes
and puttees, his neatly arranged Windsor tie, denoted the old school of
refinement and good breeding.

His long dark hair and flowing mustaches were well streaked with gray.
His forehead was knotted, his nose was large but well formed, while
the tangled lines of his face were deep cut and noticeable. From under
heavily thatched eyebrows the eyes beamed forth the rare tenderness and
gentle consideration for others which his conversation suggested.
Long before the evening's visit was over, a conviction was fixed in
Roderick's heart that here indeed was a king among men--one on whom God
had set His seal of greatness.

In later days, when both had become well acquainted, Roderick sometimes
discovered moments when this strange man was in deep meditation--when
his eyes seemed resting far away on some mysterious past or inscrutable
future. And Roderick would wonder whether it was a dark cloud of memory
or anxiety for what was to come that obscured and momentarily dimmed
the radiance of this great soul. It was in such moments that Major Buell
Hampton became patriarchal in appearance; and an observer might well
have exclaimed: "Here is one over whom a hundred winters or even
countless centuries have blown their fiercest chilling winds." But when
Buell Hampton had turned again to things of the present, his face was
lit up with his usual inspiring smile of preparedness to consider the
simplest questions of the poorest among the poor of his acquaintances--a
transfiguration indescribable, as if the magic work of some ancient
alchemist had pushed the years away, transforming the centenarian into
a comparatively young man who had seen, perhaps, not more than half a
century. He was, indeed, changeable as a chameleon. But in all phases he
looked, in the broadest sense of the word, the humanitarian.

As the three men sat that night around the fire and gazed into the
leaping flames and glowing embers, there had been a momentary lull in
the conversation, broken at last by the Major.

"I hope we shall become great friends, Mr. War-field," he said. "But to
be friends we must be acquainted, and in order to be really acquainted
with a man I must know his views on politics, religion, social
questions, and the economic problems of the age in which we live."

He waved his hand at the bookshelves well filled with volumes whose worn
bindings showed that they were there for reading and not for show.
Long rows of periodicals, even stacks of newspapers, indicated close
attention to the current questions of the day.

"Rather a large order," replied Roderick, smiling. "It would take a long
time to test out a man in such a thorough way."

The Major paid no heed to the comment. Still fixedly regarding the
bookshelves, he continued: "You see my library, while not extensive,
represents my possessions. Each day is a link in life's chain, and I
endeavor to keep pace with the latest thought and the latest steps in
the world's progress."

Then he turned round suddenly and asked the direct question: "By the
way, Mr. Warfield, are you a married man?"

Roderick blushed the blush of a young bachelor and confessed that he was
not.

"Whom God hath joined let no man put asunder," laughed Grant Jones. "The
good Lord has not joined me to anyone yet, but I am hoping He will."

"Grant, you are a boy," laughed the Major. "You always will be a boy.
You are quick to discover the ridiculous; and yet," went on the Major
reflectively, "I have seen my friend Jones in serious mood at times. But
I like him whether he is frivolous or serious. When you boys speak
of marriage as something that is arranged by a Divine power, you are
certainly laboring under one of the many delusions of this world."

Roderick remembered his compact with Stella Rain, the pretty little
college widow. For a moment his mind was back at the campus grounds in
old Galesburg. Presently he said: "I beg your pardon, Major, but would
you mind giving me your ideas of an ideal marriage?"

"An ideal marriage," repeated the Major, smiling, as he knocked the
ashes from his meerschaum. "Well, an ideal marriage is a something the
young girl dreams about, a something the engaged girl believes she has
found, and a something the married woman knows never existed."

He looked deep into the open grate as if re-reading a half forgotten
chapter in his own life. Presently refilling and lighting his pipe he
turned to Roderick and said: "When people enter into marriage--a purely
civil institution--a man agrees to bring in the raw products--the meat,
the flour, the corn, the fuel; and the woman agrees to manufacture the
goods into usable condition. The husband agrees to provide a home--the
wife agrees to take care of it and keep it habitable. In one respect
marriage is slavery," continued the Major, "slavery in the sense that
each mutually sentences himself or herself to a life of servitude, each
serving the other in, faithfully carrying out, when health permits,
their contract or agreement of partnership. Therefore marriages are made
on earth--not in heaven. There is nothing divine about them. They are,
as I have said, purely a civil institution."

The speaker paused. His listeners, deeply interested, were reluctant by
any interruption to break the flow of thought. They waited patiently,
and presently the Major resumed: "Since the laws of all civilized
nations recognize the validity of a partnership contract, they should
also furnish an honorable method of nullifying and cancelling it when
either party willfully breaks the marriage agreement of partnership by
act of omission or commission. Individuals belonging to those isolated
cases 'Whom God hath joined'--if perchance there are any--of course have
no objections to complying with the formalities of the institutions of
marriage; they are really mated and so the divorce court has no terrors
for them. It is only from among the great rank and file of the other
class whom 'God hath _not_ joined' that the unhappy victims are found
hovering around the divorce courts, claiming that the partnership
contract has been violated and broken and the erring one has proven a
false and faithless partner.

"In most instances, I believe, and it is the saddest part of it all,
the complainant is usually justified. And it is certainly a most wise,
necessary, and humane law that enables an injured wife or husband to
terminate a distasteful or repulsive union. Only in this way can the
standard of humanity be raised by peopling the earth with natural
love-begotten children, free from the effects of unfavorable pre-natal
influences which not infrequently warp and twist the unborn into
embryonic imbeciles or moral perverts with degenerate tendencies.

"Society as well as posterity is indebted fully as much to the civil
institution of divorce as it is to the civil institution of marriage.
Oh, yes, I well know, pious-faced church folks walk about throughout
the land with dubs to bludgeon those of my belief without going to the
trouble of submitting these vital questions to an unprejudiced court of
inquiry."

The Major smiled, and said: "I see you young men are interested in my
diatribe, or my sermon--call it which you will--so I'll go on. Well, the
churches that are nearest to the crudeness of antiquity, superstition,
and ignorance are the ones most unyielding and denunciatory to the
institution of divorce. The more progressive the church or the community
and the more enlightened the human race becomes, the less objectionable
and the more desirable is an adequate system of divorce laws--laws that
enable an injured wife or husband to refuse to stultify their conscience
and every instinct of decency by bringing children into the world
that are not welcome. A womanly woman covets motherhood--desires
children--love offerings with which to people the earth--babes that are
not handicapped with parental hatreds, regrets, or disgust. Marriage
is not a flippant holiday affair but a most serious one, freighted
not alone with grave responsibilities to the mutual happiness of both
parties to the civil contract, but doubly so to the offspring resultant
from the union. But I guess that is about enough of my philosophy for
one evening, isn't it?" he concluded, with a little laugh that was not
devoid of bitterness--it might have been the bitterness of personal
reminiscence, or bitterness toward a blind and misguided world in
general, or perhaps both combined.

Grant Jones turning to Roderick said: "Well, what do you think of the
Major's theory?"

"I fear," said Roderick in a serious tone, "that it is not a theory but
an actual condition."

"Bravo," said the Major as he arose from his chair and advanced to
Roderick, extending his hand. "All truth," said he, "in time will be
uncovered, truth that today is hidden beneath the débris of formalities,
ignorance, and superstition."

"But why, Major," asked Grant, "are there so many divorces? Do not
contracting parties know their own minds? Now it seems impossible to
conceive of my ever wanting a divorce from a certain little lady I
know," he added with a pleasant laugh--the care-free, confiding laugh of
a boy.

"My dear Jones," said the Major, "the supposed reasons for divorce are
legion--the actual reasons are perhaps few. However it is not for me to
say that all the alleged reasons are not potent and sufficient. When we
hear two people maligning each other in or out of the court we are
prone to believe both are telling the truth. Truth is the underlying
foundation of respect, respect begets friendship, and friendship
sometimes is followed by the more tender passion we call love. A man
meets a woman," the Major went on, thoughtfully, "whom he knows is not
what the world calls virtuous. He may fall in love with her and may
marry her and be happy with her. But if a man loves a woman he believes
to be virtuous and then finds she is not--it is secretly regarded by
him as the unforgivable sin and is doubtless the unspoken and unwritten
allegation in many a divorce paper."

He mused for a moment, then went on: "Sometime there will be a single
standard of morals for the sexes, but as yet we are not far enough away
from the brutality of our ancestors. Yes, it is infinitely better,"
he added, rising from his chair, "that a home should be broken into
a thousand fragments through the kindly assistance of a divorce court
rather than it should only exist as a family battle ground." The tone of
his voice showed that the talk was at an end, and he bade his visitors a
courteous good-night, with the cordial addition: "Come again."

"It was great," remarked Roderick, as the young men wended their
homeward way. "What a wealth of new thought a fellow can bring away from
such a conversation!"

"Just as I told you," replied Grant "But the Major opens his inmost
heart like that only to his chosen friends."

"Then I'm mighty glad to be enrolled among the number," said Roderick.
"Makes a chap feel rather shy of matrimony though, doesn't it?"

"Not on your life. True love can never change--can never wrong itself.
When you feel that way toward a girl, Warfield, and know that the girl
is of the same mind, go and get the license--no possible mistake can be
made."

Grant Jones was thinking of Dorothy Shields, and his face was aglow.
To Roderick had come thought of Stella Rain, and he felt depressed. Was
there no mistake in his love affair?--this was the uneasy question that
was beginning to call for an answer. And yet he had never met a girl
whom he would prefer to the dainty, sweet, unselfish, brave little
"college widow" of Galesburg.

CHAPTER IX--THE HIDDEN VALLEY

WITHIN a few days of Roderick's advent into the camp he was duly added
to the cowboy list on the ranch of the wealthy cattleman, Mr. Shields,
whose property was located a few miles east from the little mining town
and near the banks of the Platte River. A commodious and handsome home
stood apart from the cattle corral and bunk house lodgings for the
cowboy helpers. There were perhaps twenty cowboys in Mr. Shields'
employment. His vast herds of cattle ranged in the adjoining hills and
mountain canyons that rimmed the eastern edge of the valley.

Grant Jones had proved his friendship in the strongest sort of an
introduction, and was really responsible for Roderick securing a job
so quickly. But it was not many days before Roderick discovered that
Doro-try Shields was perhaps the principal reason why Grant rode over to
the ranch so often, ostensibly to visit him.

During the first month Roderick did not leave the ranch but daily
familiarized himself with horse and saddle. He had always been a good
rider, but here he learned the difference between a trained steed and an
unbroken mustang. Many were his falls and many his bruises, but finally
he came to be quite at home on the back of the fiercest bucking broncho.

One Saturday evening he concluded to look up Grant Jones and perhaps
have another evening with Major Buell Hampton. So he saddled a pony and
started. But at the edge of town he met his friend riding toward the
country. They drew rein, and Grant announced, as Roderick had already
divined, that he was just starting for the Shields home. They finally
agreed to call on Major Buell Hampton for half an hour and then ride out
to the ranch together.

As they approached Major Hampton's place they found him mounting his
horse, having made ready for the hills.

"How is this, Major?" asked Grant Jones. "Is it not rather late in the
afternoon for you to be starting away with your trusty rifle?"

"Well," replied the Major, after saluting his callers most cordially,
"yes, it is late. But I know where there is a deer lick, and as I am
liable to lose my reputation as a hunter if I do not bring in a couple
more venisons before long, why I propose to be on the ground with the
first streak of daylight tomorrow morning."

He glanced at the afternoon sun and said: "I think I can reach the deer
lick soon after sun-down. I shall remain over night and be ready for the
deer when they first begin stirring. They usually frequent the lick I
intend visiting."

The Major seemed impatient to be gone and soon his horse was cantering
along carrying him into the hills, while Roderick and Grant were riding
leisurely through the lowlands of the valley road toward the Shields
ranch.

All through the afternoon Buell Hampton skirted numerous rocky banks
and crags and climbed far up into the mountain country, then down
abrupt hill-sides only to mount again to still higher elevations. He was
following a dim trail with which he showed himself familiar and that led
several miles away to Spirit River Falls.

Near these falls was the deer lick. For three consecutive trips the
hunter had been unsuccessful. He had witnessed fully a dozen deer
disappear along the trail that led down to the river's bank, but none
of them had returned. It was a mystery. He did not understand where the
deer could have gone. There was no ford or riffle in the river and the
waters were too deep to admit belief of the deer finding a crossing. He
wondered what was the solution.

This was the real reason why he had left home late that afternoon,
determined, when night came on, to tether his horse in the woods far
away from the deer lick, make camp and be ready the following morning
for the first appearance of some fine buck as he came to slake
his thirst. If he did not get that buck he would at least find the
trail--indeed on the present occasion it was less the venison he was
after than the solving of the mystery.

Arriving at his destination, the improvised camp was leisurely made and
his horse given a generous feed of oats. After this he lighted a fire,
and soon a steaming cup of coffee helped him to relish the bread and
cold meat with which he had come provided.

After smoking several pipes of tobacco and building a big log fire for
the night--for the season was far advanced and there was plenty of snow
around--Buell Hampton lay down in his blankets and was soon fast
asleep, indifferent to the blinking stars or to the rhythmic stirring of
clashing leafless limbs fanned into motion by the night winds.

With the first breaking of dawn the Major was stirring. After refreshing
himself with hot coffee and glancing at the cartridges in his rifle, he