no! He was quite cheerful till his wife went away. That changed
him greatly. For months he hardly left his study. He reads too much
even now. That is why he looks so pale. His house is packed with
books."

"He seems in need of fresh air. How does your father get on with him?"

"Not at all well."

"I inferred that. Your father is a man of deeds--of open air--I take
it."

"Mr. Lambert isn't my own father," she took this opportunity to
explain. "My own father passed to the other side when I was eleven."

"Pardon my curiosity, Miss Lambert, but you've used a phrase once or
twice which I've heard the people of a certain faith use. Is your
mother a spiritualist?"

She looked at him with timid eyes, then turned quickly away. "She--she
used to be; she's studying theosophy now."

"And the minister is trying to convert you all to his especial theory!
I can imagine his discourses. No wonder you want to flee."

The girl's whole face, voice, and manner changed--became bitter,
passionate. "Oh, I hate it! I hate it! I want to be free of it all!"

The intensity of her utterance amazed Serviss, and he studied her
profile in silence before he answered. "I think I know what you mean,
and I sympathize with you. You're too young to be troubled by the
doubts and dismays of men like Clarke. He is preposterous in the face
of a landscape like this. Let us forget him and his 'isms.'" With
these words he straightened in his saddle and lifted his eyes towards
the height before them. "Isn't that superb!"

They were drawing near the great gray boundary-wall of the valley,
and the sound of roaring water grew tumultuous as they rounded the
curve in the road and came into the little triangular nook which had
been anciently formed by the Colorow as it descended in power from its
source in the high parks. On the left the ledges rose almost sheer for
a thousand feet, and from the edge of this cliff ore-buckets, a-slide
on invisible cables, appeared in the sky, swooping like eagles,
silently dropping one by one, to disappear, tamely as doves, in the
gable end of a huge, drab-colored mill which stood upon the flat
beside the stream. Beyond the mill Mount Ignacio rose darkly purple,
hooded in white clouds.

The entire scene was typical of the West, of its energy, its greed,
and its faith. Here was life--life and buoyant health--and the blood
of the young scientist quickened as he comprehended the daring, the
originality of the miner's plan.