motto chosen
by Polly and Dan, our two young modern pilgrims, as they journeyed
with greater ease, but with no less courage and venturesomeness,
across the two thousand miles intervening between quiet Fieldham and
their goal.

"Pike's Peak or Bust!" No one looking into the bright young faces
turned so bravely westward ho! could have had any doubt as to which of
the two alternatives hinted at in that picturesque motto would be
fulfilled for them. On they journeyed, on and on, past populous
cities, across great rivers, over vast plains brown with last year's
stubble or white with newly fallen snow, till at last there came a
morning when they awoke in the tingling dawn, and, looking forth
across miles of shadowy prairie, beheld a great white dome cut clear
against a sapphire sky. On the train rushed, on and on, straight
toward that snowy dome, and, as they drew nearer, other mountains
began to define themselves on either side the central peak, and
presently a town revealed itself, and they knew that it could be no
other than Colorado Springs, sleeping there at the foot of the great
range, all unconscious of the two young pilgrims, coming so
confidingly to seek their fortunes within its borders.

Their first spring and summer were a very happy time, of which Polly
and Dan could relate a hundred noteworthy incidents. They rented a
tiny cottage of three rooms in the unfashionable part of the town
where rents were low. Here was a bit of ground all about, and a
narrow porch that looked straight into the face of the splendid old
Peak; and here they lived the merriest of lives on the smallest and
most precarious of incomes; for they were determined to infringe as
little as possible upon the slender capital, snugly stowed away in a
Colorado bank.

Dan soon found employment in a livery-stable at fifty cents a day. His
chief business was the agreeable one of delivering "teams" and
saddle-horses to pleasure-seekers at the north end of the town, riding
back to the stable again on a "led horse" provided for the purpose. If
not a very ambitious calling, it was, at least, exceedingly good fun,
and it also had the merit of conforming to the doctor's directions.
"Don't let him get behind a counter or into any stuffy back-office,"
the doctor had said to Polly. "Whatever he does, let it keep him in
the open air as much as possible." Had the very obvious wisdom of this
advice required demonstration, Dan's rapid improvement would have been