"Yes," interrupted Jack, "and with our own machinery send back goods and experienced laborers to compete with the skilled labor we have educated up to the necessary standard. You would add also, that this class of citizens, with its Saturday night carousals and Monday's line of police court criminals, is superior to the noble red man, who knew not fire water nor knavery until these civilized, God-fearing people taught it to them." "Well, Jack, are you going to head a tribe of Utes to drive us back across the big sea?" "No, father, I guess I shall have all the work of philanthropy I need in piloting this young heathen through the 'hell gate' of learning into the whirling vortex of society and accomplishments," laughingly answered Jack. "When will you start on this quest?" timidly asked his mother. "Not later than the first of March, for I must be at Rock Creek soon after that time, and part of the trip is via the snow shoe route." Just then Hazel and Jack's sisters knocked imperatively for admission. "Oh--ee, Jack, is that real gold dust in that nasty looking bag?" said Miss Hazel, as she sniffed at the pouch suspiciously. "Yes, Miss Tenderfoot, that is the real stuff." "What is that you call me, tenderfeet? Why, my feet are not tender." "Oh, that is the mountain name for what sailors call 'landlubbers,' and--say, when I get a couple of wagon loads of that you will tack my name onto your own with a little hyphen, won't you, dear?" "I say, Jack," broke in one of his sisters, "did you run across any good looking white men, with lots of money, that want some one nice, 'to cook for two?'" And the dear little apron-bedecked bit of sunshine pirouetted on her toes in gleeful anticipation of Jack's reply. "Sure I did. Bill commissioned me to get him a cook, dishwasher, milkmaid and wood chopper,"-- "Hold on, Mr. Jack, I draw the line on milking. Ugh! I tried it once down at Uncle John's and I squirted my eyes full of milk. You need not laugh so. Uncle John just laughed fit to kill himself. That wasn't half so bad as Hazel, though. She tried to put blankets over the little pigs so they would keep warm, and when the old pig chased her"-- "You stop, stop, stop! Fire! Water!" screamed Hazel and no one ever found out what happened during the chase. Then sister Katherine wanted something. "Jack, you know what you promised to get me once, and you said when you had enough money you would buy me a nice canary and brass cage, and now that you have got it--such lots of it--won't you keep your word?" "They raise larger and louder voiced birds in the west than they do in the Hartz mountains. The 'Rocky mountain canary' is the greatest warbler on earth. I have my mind on one that is a daisy and when I come back you shall surely have it." "Oh, Jack, you are so good," murmured she.