aspect of its wrath. Near, red, familiar, it seemed to
visibly bowl along the heavens. In the morning it rose as baldly as it
had set. And back and forth over the awful plain blew the winds,--blew
from east to west and back again, strong as if fresh from the chambers
of their birth, full of elemental scents and of mighty murmurings.

"This is the West!" Kate cried, again and again.

The major listened to her unsmilingly. It always seemed to him a waste
of muscular energy to smile. He did not talk much. Conversation had
never appealed to him in the light of an art. He spoke when there was a
direction or a command to be given, or an inquiry to be made. The major,
if the truth must be known, was material. Things that he could taste,
touch, see, appealed to him. He had been a volunteer in the civil
war,--a volunteer with a good record,--which he never mentioned; and,
having acquitted himself decently, let the matter go without asking
reprisal or payment for what he had freely given. He went into business
and sold cereal foods.

"I believe in useful things," the major expressed himself. "Oatmeal,
wheat,-men have to have them. God intended they should. There's Jack--my
son-Jack Shelly--lawyer. What's the use of litigation? God didn't design
litigation. It doesn't do anybody any good. It isn't justice you get.
It's something entirely different,--a verdict according to law. They say
Jack's clever. But I'm mighty glad I sell wheat."

He didn't sell it as a speculator, however. That wasn't his way.

"I earn what I make," he often said; and he had grown rich in the
selling of his wholesome foods.

. . . . . . .

Helena lies among round, brown hills. Above it is a sky of deep and
illimitable blue. In the streets are crumbs of gold, but it no longer
pays to mine for these; because, as real estate, the property is more
valuable. It is a place of fictitious values. There is excitement in the
air. Men have the faces of speculators. Every laborer is patient at
his task because he cherishes a hope that some day he will be a
millionnaire. There is hospitality, and cordiality and good fellowship,
and an undeniable democracy. There is wealth and luxurious living. There
is even culture,--but it is obtruded as a sort of novelty; it is not
accepted as a matter of course.

Kate and the major were driven over two or three miles of dusty, hard
road to a distant hotel, which stands in the midst of greenness,--in
an oasis. Immediately abov