But while Rob and Nelly were growing well and strong, and having such a good time that they never wanted to go back to Mayfield, I am sorry to say that the grown people were not so contented. In the first place, good old Mrs. Plummer could not sleep. Her cough was all gone; and if she could only have slept, she would have been as well as anybody; but her heart beat too fast all the time, and kept her awake at night. She did not know that she had any trouble with her heart when she was at home; and nobody had told them that people with heart-trouble could not live in Colorado: but that is the case; the air which is so pure and dry is also so light that it makes your pulse beat a good many times more a minute, and it takes a good strong heart to bear this. You know your heart is nothing but a pump that pumps blood to go through your veins, just as water goes through pipes all over a house; and the pump has to be very strong to pump so many strokes a minute as it does in Colorado. So poor Mrs. Plummer, instead of growing better, was growing worse; and this made them all unhappy. Then Deacon Plummer and Mr. March had to acknowledge that they were paying out more money than they took in, and this worried them both. "We've got to get out on't somehow, that's clear and sartin," said the Deacon. "It won't take very long at this rate to clear us both out. I hate to give up. I'm sure there must be better places in the country somewhere for stock raisin' than this is; but we won't stir till warm weather sets in. Then we'll look round." The last week in April and the first in May were hard weeks. Snow-storm after snow-storm fell. At one time, all travel through the Pass was cut off for two days. The snow lay in great drifts in the narrowest places. In such weather as this, all the cattle had to be kept in the barns and yards, and fed; hay was very dear; and as Deacon Plummer said, "It don't take a critter very long to eat his own head off, and after it's eaten it off six times over, its head's on all the same for you to keep a feedin'."