l over was, I suppose, because of the curious
big saddles they have out here, with enormous wooden _stirrups_ on them. I
can hear you exclaim over that plural, but there are no side-saddles. That
is how it came that I was unchaperoned--Agatha won't take liberties with
them, the saddles. Thank Heaven!"

There followed much more, with only one further reference to Trevison:

"He must be nearly thirty now, but he doesn't look it, he's so boyish. I
gather, though, that he is regarded as a _man_ out here, where, I
understand, manhood is measured by something besides mere appearances. He
owns acres and acres of land--some of it has coal on it; and he is sure to
be enormously wealthy, some day. But I am twenty-four, myself."

The startling irrelevance of this sentence at first surprised Ruth
Gresham, and then caused her eyes to brighten understandingly, as she read
the letter a few days later. She remarked, musingly:

"The inevitable hum-drum days, eh? And yet most people long for them."

Another letter was written when the one to Ruth was completed. It was to
J. Chalfant Benham.

"DEAR DADDY:

"The West is a golden paradise. I could live here many, many years. I
visited Mr. Blakeley today. He calls his ranch the Bar B. We wouldn't
have to change the brand, would we? Trevison says the ranch is worth
all Blakeley asks for it. Mr. Blakeley says we can take possession
immediately, so I have decided to stay here. Mrs. Blakeley has
invited me, and I am going to have my things taken over tomorrow.
Since the Blakeley's are anxious to sell out and return South, don't
you think you had better conclude the deal at once?

"Lovingly,
"ROSALIND."

CHAPTER VIII

THE CHAOS OF CREATION

The West saw many "boom" towns. They followed in the wake of "gold
strikes;" they grew, mushroom-like, overnight--garish husks of squalor,
palpitating, hardy, a-tingle with extravagant hopes. A few, it is true,
lived to become substantial cities buzzing with the American spirit,
panting, fighting for progress with an energy that shamed the Old World,
lethargic in its smug and self-sufficient superiority. But many towns died
in their gangling youth, tragic monuments to hopes; but monuments also to
effort, and to the pioneer courage and the dreams of an empire-building
people.

Manti was destined to live. It was a