Part 23 (2/2)

He kissed her shyly.

”I don't want to git caught-understand?” he said. ”But I've done with this old life forever, so help me.”

He raised his hand to heaven in token of his solemn oath.

”We'll all help you, Jim,” said Daniel Moore.

But Miss Helen Campbell considered Jim and Minnie her private discovery and particular property, and that night, reposing on a steamer rug spread over their bed, she dreamed golden dreams of their future.

CHAPTER XVI.-IN THE ROCKIES.

Billie slept later than her friends next morning. Even their movements about the room as they dressed did not disturb her, and when at last she opened her eyes the sun was pouring his rays through the small window of the cabin and outside was the glory of a mid-summer day; for it was June 21st, and was to be a memorable day in the annals of their trip.

”Dear me,” she exclaimed, ”why doesn't somebody repeat, 'Go to the ant, thou sluggard, consider her ways and be wise.' I seem to scent coffee in the air. Chief cook and bottle washer, what have you got for breakfast?”

”Corn bread from Minnie's corn meal,” replied Nancy, who answered to this t.i.tle, ”and s.h.i.+rred eggs, the last in our storehouse, and chopped beef--”

Billie jumped up.

”You lavish and wasteful young persons,” she cried. ”How do you know we won't need some of these things before we get back to civilization?”

”There are still baked beans,” said Nancy reproachfully. Nancy was a born cook, and, like other born cooks, she was only amiable when she was not interfered with.

”Go out and look at the scenery,” she continued, ”and leave us in peace.

We won't starve. There's a box of wheaten biscuit left.”

”I'd just as soon eat a bale of hay,” cried Billie contemptuously. ”And there's the Comet. He has to be fed this morning. How do I know that our provisions will last? If the food fails and the gasoline likewise, '_et puis bon jour_,' as the song says.”

But Billie wasn't really apprehensive. The day was too fine and her spirits too high.

”The truth is, we are all like the angels in heaven rejoicing over one sinner repented,” said Mary in a low voice, for Minnie could be seen approaching with a pail of water from the spring.

Toilets are meagre affairs in a cabin in the Rocky Mountains, and in a quarter of an hour Billie was fully clothed, washed and combed. Mary had closed the door of the cabin while she dressed.

”Don't look out until you see it all at once,” she said. ”It's too wonderful to take it by piece-meal.”

Billie, therefore, had not an inkling of what was in store for her until she stepped out of the cabin.

Nothing on all her journeys with her father could equal the grand panorama which was revealed beyond the cabin door. They appeared to be in a world of peaks-”Mr. and Mrs. Peak, and all the young Peaks,” she wrote to her father later. In the far distance were snow-capped peaks and nearer were lesser peaks. The cabin was built alarmingly near the edge of a great canon, at the foot of which, hundreds of feet below, lay a little green valley amazingly peaceful in all this rugged scenery, in which cattle no bigger than pinheads at that distance, were quietly grazing.

Billie trembled to think what they might have climbed the night before without suspecting it. This was certainly a good place for a robbers'

nest. The cabin was perched on a shelf in the side of the mountain, and brave were the men, Billie thought, who dared to climb the path that led to it.

It was a gay breakfast party that gathered around the small table that morning and Minnie's eyes glistened with appreciation at sight of the white cloth and the bunch of wild flowers in the center, which had been Elinor's contribution to the breakfast.

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