Every gulch had carried its torrent of melted snow to threaten the
safety of the unballasted track, and what with slow speed over the
hazards and much shovelling of land-slips in the cuttings, the sun was
dipping to the westward range when the lumbering little construction
engine clattered down the last of the inclines and found the long level
tangents in the park.

On the first of the tangents the locomotive was stopped at a
watering-tank. During the halt Ballard climbed down from his cramped
seat on the fireman's box and crossed the cab to the engine-man's
gangway. Hoskins, the engine-driver, leaning from his window, pointed
out the projected course of the southern lateral canal in the great
irrigation system.

"It'll run mighty nigh due west here, about half-way between us and the
stage trail," he explained; and Ballard, looking in the direction
indicated, said: "Where is the stage trail? I haven't seen it since we
left the snow balds."

"It's over yonder in the edge of the timber," was the reply; and a
moment later its precise location was defined by three double-seated
buckboards, passenger-laden and drawn by four-in-hand teams of
tittupping broncos, flicking in and out among the pines and pushing
rapidly eastward. The distance was too great for recognition, but
Ballard could see that there were women in each of the vehicles.

"Hello!" he exclaimed. "Those people must have crossed the range from
Alta Vista to-day. What is the attraction over here?--a summer-resort
hotel?"

"Not any in this valley," said the engineman. "They might be going on
over to Ashcroft, or maybe to Aspen, on the other side o' the Elk
Mountains. But if that's their notion, they're due to camp out
somewhere, right soon. It's all o' forty mile to the neardest of the
Roaring Fork towns."

The engine tank was filled, and the fireman was flinging the dripping
spout to its perpendicular. Ballard took his seat again, and became once
more immersed in his topographical studies of the new field; which was
possibly why the somewhat singular spectacle of a party of tourists
hastening on to meet night and the untaverned wilderness passed from his
mind.

The approach to the headquarters camp of the Arcadia Company skirted the
right bank of the Boiling Water, in this portion of its course a river
of the plain, eddying swiftly between the aspen-fringed banks. But a few
miles farther on, where the gentle undulations of the rich grass-land
gave plac