le Seth says you'd better try it, and I ain't one to oppose
just for the sake of opposin'. I've been through too much for that.
Only I warn you; mind, you don't forget I warned you."

Polly listened to Aunt Lucia's lugubrious views with scarcely a twinge
of alarm, and in five minutes she had plunged into preparations for
the journey.

As for Dan, the mere thought of Colorado seemed to revive him. "Larks"
of any description had always been very much to his taste, but the
unending "lark" of an escape into the big world with Polly filled him
with a fairly riotous joy.

And so it happened that by the time the March thaws were setting in
and the March winds were getting ready for their boisterous attack,
Polly and Dan had slipped away, and were travelling as fast as steam
could carry them toward the high, health-giving region of the Rocky
Mountains.

"A harebrained venture as ever was!" Miss Louisa Bailey declared when
she heard of it. "I don't see what Mr. and Mrs. Lapham were thinking
of, to countenance such a step!"

The monthly sewing-circle had come round again, and Mrs. Lapham, whose
turn it was to look after the supper, had stepped out of the room for
a moment.

"Well, I don't know but it's about as well," the Widow Criswell
rejoined, sighing profoundly. She was more out of spirits than usual
to-day, for circumstances, otherwise known as Mrs. Royce, the
president of the sewing-circle, had forced into her hands a baby's
pinafore, the cheerful suggestiveness of which could only serve to
deepen her gloom. "The boy's doomed, wherever he is, and Sister
Lapham never had any real taste for sick-nursing. She's spared a sight
o' trouble and expense."

"_Well_," said Mrs. Henry Dodge, winding a needleful of No. 20 thread
off the spool, with the hissing sound familiar to the ears of the
seamstress, and breaking it off with a snap, "_I_ think it's the very
_best_ thing that could have been _done_. The minute I _saw_ that
girl's face last sewing-circle, I _knew_ she'd make out to _save that
boy_. Mark my words, he'll outlive us all _yet!_ I declare, I always
_did_ like Polly Fitch. She reminds me of _myself_ when _I_ was a
girl!"

CHAPTER II

WESTWARD HO!

"Pike's Peak or Bust!" was the chosen motto of those early pilgrims
who, thirty-odd years ago, crossed the continent in a "prairie
schooner," escorted by a cavalry guard to keep Indian marauders at a
respectful distance; and "Pike's Peak or Bust!" was the