're ready, boys, we'll just waltz down to Thompson's and
pack up the shanty. He's out of it by this time, I reckon. You might
as well be perspiring to some purpose over there as gaspin' under this
tree. We won't go back to work this afternoon, but knock off now, and
call it half a day. Come! Hump yourselves, gentlemen. Are you ready?
One, two, three, and away!"

In another instant the tree was deserted; the figures of the five
millionaires of Devil's Ford, crossing the fierce glare of the open
space, with boyish alacrity, glistened in the sunlight, and then
disappeared in the nearest fringe of thickets.

CHAPTER II

Six hours later, when the shadow of Devil's Spur had crossed the river,
and spread a slight coolness over the flat beyond, the Pioneer coach,
leaving the summit, began also to bathe its heated bulk in the long
shadows of the descent. Conspicuous among the dusty passengers, the
two pretty and youthful faces of the daughters of Philip Carr, mining
superintendent and engineer, looked from the windows with no little
anxiety towards their future home in the straggling settlement below,
that occasionally came in view at the turns of the long zigzagging road.
A slight look of comical disappointment passed between them as they
gazed upon the sterile flat, dotted with unsightly excrescences that
stood equally for cabins or mounds of stone and gravel. It was so feeble
and inconsistent a culmination to the beautiful scenery they had passed
through, so hopeless and imbecile a conclusion to the preparation of
that long picturesque journey, with its glimpses of sylvan and pastoral
glades and canyons, that, as the coach swept down the last incline,
and the remorseless monotony of the dead level spread out before them,
furrowed by ditches and indented by pits, under cover of shielding their
cheeks from the impalpable dust that rose beneath the plunging
wheels, they buried their faces in their handkerchiefs, to hide a few
half-hysterical tears. Happily, their father, completely absorbed in a
practical, scientific, and approving contemplation of the topography
and material resources of the scene of his future labors, had no time
to notice their defection. It was not until the stage drew up before
a rambling tenement bearing the inscription, "Hotel and Stage Office,"
that he became fully aware of it.

"We can't stop HERE, papa," said Christie Carr decidedly, with a shake
of her pretty head. "You can't expect that."