was ere long spread a
breakfast on a magnificent scale. It was barely ready when the first
waggons arrived and commenced to lumber up the ascent, preceded by two
girls on horseback, who waved their hands, and gave vent to vigorous
little feminine cheers as they cantered up the slope.

These two were our old friends whom we knew as May Leather and Mary
Jackson, but who must now be re-introduced to the reader as Mrs Charlie
Brooke and Mrs Dick Darvall. On the same day they had changed their
names at the Ranch of Roaring Bull, and had come to essay wedded life in
the far west.

We need hardly say that this was the great experimental emigrant party,
led by the Reverend William Reeves, who had resolved to found a colony
on total abstinence principles, and with as many as possible of the sins
of civilisation left behind. They found, alas! that sin is not so
easily got rid of; nevertheless, the effort was not altogether
fruitless, and Mr Reeves carried with him a sovereign antidote for sin
in the shape of a godly spirit.

The party was a large one, for there were many men and women of the
frontier whose experiences had taught them that life was happier and
better in every way without the prevalent vices of gambling and
drinking.

Of course the emigrants formed rather a motley band. Among them,
besides those of our friends already mentioned, there were our hero's
mother and all the Leather family. Captain Stride's daughter as well as
his "Missus," and Mr Crossley's housekeeper, Mrs Bland. That good
woman, however, had been much subdued and rendered harmless by the
terrors of the wilderness, to which she had been recently exposed. Miss
Molloy was also there, with an enormous supply of knitting needles and
several bales of worsted.

Poor Shank Leather was still so much of an invalid as to be obliged to
travel in a spring cart with his father, but both men were rapidly
regaining physical strength under the influence of temperance, and
spiritual strength under a higher power.

Soon the hammer, axe, and saw began to resound in that lovely western
wilderness; the net to sweep its lakes; the hook to invade its rivers;
the rifle to crack in the forests, and the plough to open up its virgin
soil. In less time, almost, than a European would take to wink, the
town of Sweetwater Bluff sprang into being; stores and workshops, a
school and a church, grew, up like mushrooms; seed was sown, and
everything, in short, was done th