ur foot in it that way? But I stopped to see if some
of you didn't want to go up the gulch this afternoon. It's not so very
warm, and Lou and Grant are going, so I said I'd hurry on ahead and get
you to come too. Here they are, now."

"I'll go; wait till I get my hat." And Allie vanished.

"Come along too, Mrs. Burnam," said Ned persuasively.

"I wish I could, Ned; but I must stay with Vic, for Janey has gone out
this afternoon. You'd better stop in here, all of you, when you come
back, though. The boys will be home by that time, and I want to see
Louise, too," she added, as Ned and Allie went down the steps.

At the west side of the town, the mountains rose up, sheer and straight,
their slopes ending abruptly at the outer streets, which were carefully
laid out and numbered, although no houses had yet been built there.
However, the low, even ground was elaborately divided into blocks, and
the blocks, in their turn, into building lots, to be in readiness for
the possible purchaser, who might appear at any moment. On the boundary
line between the town and this suburban region was the little brick
school-house; and beyond it lay the open ground which now, in the
absence of any inhabitants, was still used as a wood yard for the
distant smelter, whose constant fires easily devoured the vast piles of
wood daily unloaded by the trains which ran down the spur of track
leading to the yard. Beyond this again were the mountains, which rose to
their highest point just to the west of the town, where the tips of the
tallest peaks were always blanketed with the soft, white piles of snow.
At only one spot their unbroken front was interrupted, where a deep,
narrow ravine led far up among the mountains, forming a delightful walk
in a warm summer day. After the burning glare on the dry, sandy soil of
the town, which, in its barren lack of grass and trees, stared back at
the sun like a lidless, lashless eye, the cool shadows of the pines in
the gulch were a refreshing change. The little gulch had its variety of
names: Bear Gulch, it was called, Lover's Gulch, and even Cemetery
Gulch, from the lonely burial ground perched on the top of the rugged
bluff at its entrance.

Ned and Allie had taken the lead, with Louise and Grant following close
behind them, as they picked their way among the countless tin cans
scattered over the fields, or paused to look and laugh while the boys
clambered to the top of the long wood-piles, and ran slow, uns