, with a little skip of
rapture. "Dear, dear Rose! Elsie, the nicest sort of things do happen
out here, don't they?"

CHAPTER V.

ARRIVAL.

THE train from Denver was nearing St. Helen's,--and Imogen Young looked
eagerly from the window for a first sight of the place. Their journey
had been exhaustingly hot during its last stages, the alkaline dust most
trying, and they had had a brief experience of a sand-storm on the
plains, which gave her a new idea as to what wind and grit can
accomplish in the way of discomfort. She was very tired, and quite
disposed to be critical and unenthusiastic; still she had been compelled
to admit that the run down from Denver lay over an interesting country.

The town on its plateau was shining in full sunshine, as it had done
when Clover landed there six years before, but its outlines had greatly
changed with the increase of buildings. The mountain range opposite was
darkly blue from the shadows of a heavy thunder gust which was slowly
rolling away southward. The plains between were of tawny yellow, but the
belts of mesa above showed the richest green, except where the lines of
alfalfa and grain were broken by white patches of mentzelia and poppies.
It was wonderfully beautiful, but the town itself looked so much larger
than Imogen had expected that she exclaimed with surprise:--

"Why, Lion, it's a city! You said you were bringing me out to live in
the wilderness. What made you tell such stories? It looks bigger than
Bideford."

"It looks larger than it did when I came away," replied her brother.
"Two, three, six,--eight fine new houses on Monument Avenue, by Jove,
and any number off there toward the north. You've no idea how these
Western places sprout and thrive, Moggy. This isn't twenty years old
yet."

"I can't believe it. You are imposing on me. And why on earth did you
let me bring out all those pins and things? There seem to be any number
of shops."

"I let you! Oh, I say, that is good! Why, Moggy, don't you remember how
I remonstrated straight through your packing. Never a bit would you
listen to me, and here is the result," pulling out a baggage memorandum
as he spoke, and reading aloud in a lugubrious tone, "Extra weight of
trunks, thirteen dollars, fifty-two cents."

"Thirteen fifty," cried Imogen with a gasp. "My gracious! why, that's
nearly three pounds! Lion! Lion! you ought to have _made_ me listen."

"I'm sure I did all I could in that way. But cheer u