than hints and suggestions caught from time to time by a single observer
in a comparatively narrow field of observation. Narrow as the field is,
however, it offers a somewhat unusual diversity of scene; for that most
charming of health resorts known in these pages as Springtown, is the
chance centre of many varying interests. In its immediate vicinity
exists the life of the prairie ranch on the one hand and that of the
mining-camp on the other; while dominating all as it were--town,
prairie, and mountain fastness--rises the great Peak which has now for
so many years been the goal of pilgrimage to men and women from the
Eastern States in pursuit of health, of fortune, or of the free,
open-air life of the prairie. If, from acquaintance with these
fictitious characters set in a very real environment, the reader be led
to form some slight impression of the stirring little drama which is
going forward to-day in that pleasant Land of Promise, he will have
incidentally endorsed the claim of these disconnected sketches to be
regarded as a single picture.

May, 1894.

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CONTENTS

CHAPTER PAGE

PREFACE v
I.--A PILGRIM IN THE FAR WEST 1
II.--BRIAN BORU 36
III.--JAKE STANWOOD'S GAL 60
IV.--AT THE KEITH RANCH 101
V.--THE RUMPETY CASE 123
VI.--THE LAME GULCH PROFESSOR 151
VII.--THE BOSS OF THE WHEEL 187
VIII.--MR. FETHERBEE'S ADVENTURE 217
IX.--AN AMATEUR GAMBLE 240
X.--A ROCKY MOUNTAIN SHIPWRECK 266
XI.--A STROKE IN THE GAME 301
XII.--THE BLIZZARD PICNIC 335
XIII.--A GOLDEN VISTA 369

Note.--Of the thirteen sketches included in this volume six have
previously appeared in periodicals, as follows:

_A Pilgrim in the Far West_ in _Harper's Weekly_; _Brian Boru_ in
_Worthington's Magazine_; _Jake Stanwood's Gal_ and _At the Keith Ranch_
in _The Century Magazine_; _The Rumpety Case_ in _Lippincott's
Magazine_; and _An Amateur Gamble_ in _Scribner