town and the silver canyon from predatory bands of Apaches.

These lancers were raised and drilled by Captain Miguel, Bart being
appointed their leader when he had grown to years of discretion--that is
to say, of greater discretion than of old, and that was soon after
Doctor Lascelles had said to him one day:

"Well, yes, Bart; you always have seemed to be like my son. I think it
will be as well;" and, as a matter of course, that conversation related
to Bart's marriage with Maude.

But, in spite of his prosperity and the constant demand for his services
in connection with the mines and the increase of the town, Bart never
forgot his delight in a ramble in the wilds; and whenever time allowed,
and the Beaver and some of his followers had come in from some hunting
expedition, there was just a hint to Joses, when before daybreak next
morning a start was made either to hunt bison and prong-horn, the
black-tailed deer in the woods at the foot of the mountain, or to fish
in some part of the canyon. Unfortunately, though, the sparkling river
became spoiled by degrees, owing to the enormous quantities of
mine-refuse that ran in, poisoning the fish, and preventing them from
coming anywhere near the mountain.

Still there were plenty to be had by those daring enough to risk an
encounter with the Indians, and many were the excursions Bart enjoyed
with Joses and the Beaver, both remaining his attached followers, though
the latter used to look sadly at the change that had come over the land.

And truly it was a wondrous change; for, as years passed on, the town
grew enormously--works sprang up with towering chimneys and furnaces,
the former ever belching out their smoke; while of such importance did
Silver Canyon City grow, and so great was the traffic, that mules and
waggons could no longer do the work.

The result is easy to guess. There was a vast range of rolling plain to
cross, a few deviations enabling the engineer, who surveyed the country
with Apaches watching him, to avoid the mountains; and this being done,
and capital abundant, a railway soon crept, like a sinuous serpent, from
Lerisco to the mountain foot, along which panted and raced the heavily
laden trains.

The Apaches scouted, and there was some little trouble with them at
first, but they were punished pretty severely, though they took no
lesson so deeply to heart as the one read their chief upon seeing the
first train run along the rails.

Poor wretch!