I wonder if his statements
can be relied upon." Somehow Herbert doubted it. He was beginning to
distrust the colonel.

CHAPTER XXII. A MOUNTAIN STAGE.

We pass over several days, and change the scene. We left Herbert and
Melville in the Palmer House in Chicago, surrounded by stately edifices
and surging crowds. Now everything is changed. They are in a mountainous
district, where a man might ride twenty miles without seeing a house.
They are, in fact, within the limits of what was then known as the
Territory of Colorado. It is not generally known that Colorado contains
over a hundred mountain summits over ten thousand feet above the sea
level. It is perhaps on account of the general elevation that it is
recommended by physicians as a good health resort for all who are
troubled with lung complaints.

At the time of which I speak most of the traveling was done by stage.
Now railroads unite the different portions with links of steel, and make
traveling less cumbersome and laborious. There was one of the party,
however, who did not complain, but rather enjoyed the jolting of the
lumbering stage-coach.

Col. Warner was of the party. He professed to feel an extraordinary
interest in George Melville, and was anxious to show him the country
where he had himself regained his health.

"Lonely, sir!" repeated the colonel, in answer to a remark of George
Melville. "Why, sir, it's a populous city compared with what it was in
'55, when I was out here. I built myself a cabin in the woods, and once
for twelve months I didn't see a white face."

"Were there many Indians, Colonel?" asked Herbert.

"Indians? I should say so. Only twenty miles from my cabin was an Indian
village."

"Did they trouble you any?" asked Herbert, curiously.

"Well, they tried to," answered the colonel. "One night as I lay awake I
heard stealthy steps outside, and peeping through a crevice between the
logs just above the head of my bed--by the way, my bed was the skin of
a bear I had myself killed--I could see a string of Utes preparing to
besiege me."

"Were you afraid?" asked Herbert, a little mischievously, for he knew
pretty well what the colonel would say.

"Afraid!" repeated the colonel, indignantly. "What do you take me for? I
have plenty of faults," continued Col. Warner, modestly, "but cowardice
isn't one of them. No, sir; I never yet saw the human being, white,
black, or red, that I stood in fear of. But, as I was saying, the
red