cask at the wagon's side.
Methodically he kicked together a little pile of greasewood roots.

"We're to have some tea, you know," he remarked. "I don't charge
nothin' extry for tea, whiskey, or advice on this railroad of mine.
Get down now, ma'am," he added, reaching up his arms to assist
Constance from her place. "Come along, set right down here on the
ground in the sun. It's good for you. Ain't it nice?

"There's the back of old Carrizy just beginnin' to show," he explained;
"and there's the Bonitos comin' up below. That's Blanco Peak beyond,
the tallest in the Territory; and them mountings close in is the
Nogales. There ain't a soul within many and many a mile of here. And
now, with them old mountings a-lookin' down at us on the strict
_cuidado_, not botherin' us if we don't bother them, why, ain't it
comfortable? This country'll take hold of you after a while, ma'am.
It's the oldest in the world; but somehow it seems to me onct in a
while as if it was about the youngest, too."

Constance took the counsel offered her, and seated herself in full
glare of the Southwestern sun. She looked about her and felt an
unwonted sense of peace, as though she were rocked in some great cradle
and under some watchful eye. "Dad," said she, quietly, "I'm not going
home. I'm going to spend a month at Sky Top."

"Has it caught _you_, ma'am?" asked Tom Osby, simply.

"She talks as though there were no business interests anywhere to be
taken care of," grumbled her father.

"Oh, now, interests ain't exclusive for the States," said Tom Osby.
"You come all the way out here to steal a town, and you couldn't do it.
Give the girl a month, an' she'll just about have the town--or her and
me together will. You settin' there talkin' about goin' home! Go on
home if you feel like it. Me and Miss Constance will stay out here,
and take care of the business interests ourselves."

"We're personally conducted, dad," laughed Constance.

"Listen," said their personal conductor, balancing a cup of tea upon
his knee. "Now, you folks has got money behind you that's painful.
You don't _have_ to steal, Mr. Ellsworth. It's only a _habit_ with
you. Now s'pose Miss Constance comes along, allowin' that God can plat
a town as well as a surveyor, and allowin' that the first fellers that
finds it has as good a right to it as the last ones--which she _does_
allow, and _know_. Now, here's what she says. Says she, 'We'll go in
with this outfit