all the good lands
the Almighty intended for them."

I did not answer, though Harry said aside that he did not know the whole
earth was made for Englishmen. There was occasionally much in what Lee
said that commanded sympathy, but he had a habit of relapsing into vague
prophetic utterance, which was perhaps acquired when he ran the Stoney
Clough chapel. Still, as hour by hour we went clattering through solemn
forests almost untouched by the axe, or rending apart the silence that
hung over great lonely lakes, and past wide rivers, while the whole air
was filled with the fragrance of pines and cedars, I wondered whether
either his or the surveyor's forecast would come true, and decided if that
were so England would have cause to be proud of this rich country. For the
rest, Harry and I never found our interest slacken, and looked on in
silence as that most gorgeous panorama of snow-peak, forest, and glacier
unwound itself league after league before us, until at last amid a
grinding of brakes the long freight train ran onto a side track. She was
only just in time, for with the ballast trembling beneath, and red cinders
flying from the funnel of the mammoth mountain engine ahead, the Atlantic
mail went by. Then, as we stepped down on the track the same thought was
evidently uppermost in each of us, for Harry said:

"Ralph, this land approaches one's wildest fancies of a terrestrial
paradise, and if in spite of our efforts we fail at Fairmead it's
comforting to think we can always bring up here. If I had the choice I'd
like to be buried in the heart of those forests. What do you say,
Johnston?"

Johnston smiled a little, but his tone was not the usual one as he
answered: "I think I shall. You'll say it sounds like old woman's talk,
but I fancy I'll never recross those Rockies. Anyway, it won't worry the
rest of humanity very much if I don't, and I dare say we'll get some small
excitement track-grading in the meantime. This country doesn't lay itself
out to favor railroad building, especially in winter."

CHAPTER XIII

ADVOCATES OF TEMPERANCE

It was a month later, and we had settled down to our new task, when Lee,
who had managed to make himself generally useful, took a wholly unexpected
step. Our camp stood beside the partly completed track, which after
climbing through the passes wound along the edge of a precipice into a
bowl-shaped hollow among the mountains. High above it on the one hand the
hillsides slo