d droop in her
voice, she appealed to Ward: "Take me away from here. I'm tired of this
savage world."

THE LEASER

_--the tenderfoot hay-roller from the
prairies--still tries his luck in some
abandoned tunnel--sternly toiling for
his sweetheart far away._

VIII

THE LEASER

The only passenger in the car who really interested me was a burly young
fellow who sat just ahead of me, and who seemed to be something more
than a tourist, for the conductor greeted him pleasantly and the
brakeman shook his hand. We were climbing to Cripple Creek by way of the
Short Line, but as "the sceneries" were all familiar to me, I was able
to study my fellow-passengers.

The man before me was very attractive, although he was by no
interpretation a gentle type. On the contrary, he looked to be the rough
and ready American, rough in phrase and ready to fight. His corduroy
coat hunched about his muscular shoulders in awkward lines, and his
broad face, inclining to fat, was stern and harsh. He appeared to be
about thirty-five years of age.

The more I studied him the more I hankered to know his history. The
conductor, coming through, hailed him with:

"Well, gettin' back, eh? Had a good trip?"

Once or twice the miner--he was evidently a miner--leaned from the
window and waved his hat to some one on the crossing, shouted a cheery,
"How goes it?" and the brakeman asked:

"How did you find the East?"

From all this I deduced that the miner had been away on a visit to New
York, or Boston, or Washington.

As we rose the air became so cool, so clear, so crisp, that we seemed to
be entering a land of eternal dew and roses, and as our car filled with
the delicious scent of pine branches and green grasses, the miner, with
a solemn look on his face, took off his hat and, turning to me, said,
with deep intonation:

"This is what I call _air_. This is good for what ails me."

"You've been away," I stated rather than asked.

"I've been back East--back to see the old folks--first time in eleven
years."

"What do you call East?" I pursued.

"Anything back of the Missouri River," he replied, smiling a little. "In
this case it was Michigan--near Jackson."

"Citizen of the camp?" I nodded up the canyon.

"Yes, I'm workin' a lease on Bull Hill."

"How's the old camp looking?"

"All shot to pieces. Half the houses empty, and business gone to pot.
It's a purty yellow proposition now."

"You don't say! It was