the snow-filled ravines of the mountains to the
south, and almost hear the thunder crashing round old Uncompahgre, even
when the broad leaves above their heads are pulseless and the heat of
the mid-day light is a cataract of molten metal.

It is, as I have said, a productive land, for upon this ashen,
cactus-spotted, repellent flat men have directed the cool, sweet water
of the upper world, and wherever this life-giving fluid touches the soil
grass and grain spring up like magic.

For all its wild and beautiful setting, Sibley is now a town of farmers
and traders rather than of miners. The wagons entering the gates are
laden with wheat and melons and peaches rather than with ore and
giant-powder, and the hotels are frequented by ranchers of prosaic
aspect, by passing drummers for shoes and sugars, and by the barbers and
clerks of near-by shops. It is, in fact, a bit of slow-going village
life dropped between the diabolism of Cripple Creek and the decay of
Creede.

Nevertheless, now and then a genuine trailer from the heights, or
cow-man from the mesas, does drop into town on some transient business
and, with his peculiar speech and stride, remind the lazy town-loafers
of the vigorous life going on far above them. Such types nearly always
put up at the Eagle Hotel, which was a boarding-house advanced to the
sidewalk of the main street and possessing a register.

At the time of this story trade was good at the Eagle for two reasons.
Mrs. Gilman was both landlady and cook, and an excellent cook, and, what
was still more alluring, Bertha, her pretty daughter, was day-clerk and
general manager. Customers of the drummer type are very loyal to their
hotels, and amazingly sensitive to female charm--therefore Bertha, who
would have been called an attractive girl anywhere, was widely known and
tenderly recalled by every brakeman on the line. She was tall and
straight, with brown hair and big, candid, serious eyes--wistful when in
repose, boyishly frank and direct as she stood behind her desk attending
to business, or smiling as she sped her parting guests at the door.

"I know Bertie ought to be in school," Mrs. Gilman said one day to a
sympathetic guest. "But what can I do? We got to live. I didn't come out
here for my health, but goodness knows I never expected to slave away in
a hot kitchen in this way. If Mr. Gilman had lived--"

It was her habit to leave her demonstrations--even her
sentences--unfinished, a peculiarity