a glory of gold that might well put all Lame Gulch
to the blush! Over yonder stood the Range, not beautiful, in the
uncompromising noon light, but strong and steadfast, with an almost
moral vigor in its outlines.

He had lost sight of the milk-cart altogether, and was plodding on,
simply because there seemed to be nothing better to do with himself. He
presently came opposite a low, conical hill which he recognized as "Mt.
Washington,"--a hill whose elevation above sea-level was said to be
precisely that of New England's loftiest peak. Wakefield reflected that
he was never likely to reach that classic altitude with less exertion
than to-day, and that on the whole it would be rather pleasant than
otherwise to find himself at that particular height. There was a
barbed-wire fence intervening, and it pleased him to take it "on the
fly." He had undoubtedly been going down-hill of late, but his legs, at
least, had held their own, he assured himself, with some satisfaction,
as he alighted, right side up, within the enclosure. He thought, with a
whimsical turn, of Pheidippides, the youth who used his legs to such
good purpose; who "ran like fire,"--shouted, "Rejoice, we conquer!"--then
"died in the shout for his meed." How simple life once was, according to
Browning and the rest! What a muddle it was to-day, according to Harry
Wakefield! And all because a girl had refused him! He had been trying
all along not to think of Dorothy Ray, but by the time he had reached
the summit of the hill,--that little round of red sand, where only a
single yellow cactus had had the courage to precede him,--he knew that
his hour of reckoning had come. He had gambled, yes; but it was for her
sake he had gambled; he had lost, yes, but it was she he had lost.

He flung himself down on the bare red hilltop, and with his chin in his
hands, gazed across irrigated meadows and parched foothills to the grim
slope of the mountains. And stretched there, with his elbows digging
into the sandy soil, his mind bracing itself against the everlasting
hills, he let the past draw near.

There was an atmosphere about that past, a play of light and shadow, a
mist of poetry and romance, that made the Colorado landscape in the
searching noon light seem typical of the life he had led there:--a
crude, prosaic, _metallic_ sort of life. And after the first shrinking
from the past, his mind began to feel deliciously at home in it.

How he had loved Dorothy Ray! How the t