t him queerly.

"By the way," began Ellsworth, taking from his pocket an engineer's
blue-print map, "one of the first things we want to settle is the
question of our depot site. The only place we can lay out our side
tracks is just at the head of the canon, and at the lower end of the
valley. Do you know anything about this house here? It's the first
one as you go into town from the lower end of the valley."

Dan Anderson bent over the map. "Yes, I know it perfectly," said he.
"That's the adobe of our friend Tom Osby here, the man who came down
with me from Heart's Desire. He just went up the trail with your
daughter, sir."

"The yards'll wipe him out," said Barkley.

"The valley is so narrow," went on Ellsworth, "according to what our
engineers say, that we've got to clean out the whole lower part of the
town, in order to lay out the station grounds."

Dan Anderson started. The money in his pocket suddenly burned him.

"The trouble with your whole gang," resumed Barkley, striking a match
on a log, "has been that you've been trying to stop the world. You
can't do that."

Dan Anderson, silent, grim, listened to what he had not heard for many
months, the crack of the whip of modern progress. Yet, before his eyes
he still saw passing the vision of a tall, round figure, sweet in the
beauty of young womanhood, even as he was strong in the strength of his
young manhood.

"I'll help you all I can honorably, gentlemen," said he, at length,
rising; "we'll talk it over up at the town itself. I don't know just
what we can do in the way of recognizing existing rights, but in my
opinion force isn't the way to go about it."

"Well, we'll use force if need be; you can depend on that!" said
Barkley, harshly. "I've got to get back home before long, and it will
be up to you after that."

He and Ellsworth also arose and brushed from their clothing the
clinging dust and pine needles. The three turned towards the trail and
walked slowly up to the edge of the open space in which stood the Sky
Top edifice.

"Quite a house, isn't it?" said Ellsworth, admiringly.

Dan Anderson did not look at the building. Constance was sitting alone
at the edge of the gallery. Wishing nothing so much in the world as to
go forward, Dan Anderson turned back at the edge of the grounds.

Some jangling mountain jays flitted from tree to tree about him. They
seemed to call out to him to pause, to return. The whispering of the
pines ca