f marshalling itself in one grand, exhaustive cyclorama. On
every hand were snowy summits forming a titanic ring which seemed to
concentrate upon Lame Gulch; and much of the sense of aloofness and
security which was the chief element in Amberley's content came from the
illusion which he carefully guarded, that that wall of giants really was
impenetrable. He liked, too, to feel himself at a great altitude above
the lower world where he had so long and vainly toiled.

"Nine thousand feet above sea-level!" he would assure himself in
self-congratulatory mood. "When I come to quit, I sha' n't hev fur to
go!" which confidence in the direction his spirit was destined to take,
may fairly be accepted as indication of a good conscience.

Amberley had not married, and although he felt the omission to be matter
for regret, he had never, as far as his recollection served him, found
his wish to do so particularized in favor of any one woman.

"No, I ain't never married," he reluctantly admitted, when Enoch Baker,
his next-door neighbor at Lame Gulch, pressed the point.

Enoch lived with his wife just round on the other side of Bear Mountain,
only three miles away, and although his now elderly consort was reputed
to be unamiable,--not to say cantankerous,--yet her existence, and the
existence in the world outside, of many children and grandchildren,
conferred upon him the enviable dignity of a man of family. He was a
Yankee, and his thirst for information was not to be lightly appeased.

"Disapp'inted?" he asked, knocking the ashes out of his pipe, and
pulling out a venerable tobacco-pouch, with a view to "fillin' her up"
again. "Disapp'inted?"

"Yes; ruther,--bein' as I was always fond of children."

Amberley was himself a tall, limp-looking downeaster, with pleasant,
unsuspicious eyes, and a guileless spirit. He used to hand his cattle
over to Baker once a year, and let him drive them with his own down the
long mountain road to Springtown, and it was understood than he did not
inquire too curiously in the matter of commissions. The stores and
fodder which Enoch delivered over to him in exchange, together with a
plausibly varying amount of hard cash, seemed to Simon an ample return
for the scrawny cattle he sent to market. And Enoch, for his part, was
always willing to testify that Amberley was a pleasant man to deal with.

"What was she like?" Enoch inquired, in the tone of a connoisseur,
transfixing Amberley with his shrewd