The little daughter, with whom he kept up a desultory correspondence, had expressed her regret in a letter written in the stiff, carefully worded style of "sweet sixteen," and he had never guessed the passion of disappointment which the prim little letter concealed. This had happened five years ago. He had taken up his claim successfully, but there success ended. After four years or more of rather futile "ranching," he sold most of his stock to his men, who promptly departed with it, and proceeded to locate a claim a few miles distant. The incident amused him as illustrating the dignity of labor, and kindred philosophical theories which the present age seems invented to establish. One horse, a couple of cows, and his six collie dogs of assorted ages and sizes, he still retained, and with their assistance he was rapidly making away with the few hundreds accruing from the sale of his stock and farming implements. He had placed the money in the bank at Cameron City, a small railroad-station in a hollow five miles north of him, and it was when his eyes fell upon the rapidly diminishing monthly balance that he thought he saw coming that unpleasant alternative of which mention has been made. He found no little entertainment, after the departure of his men, in converting their late sleeping-apartment into what he was pleased to call a "museum." To this end nothing further was necessary, after removing all traces of their late occupancy, than that two old sole-leather trunks should render up their contents, consisting of half-forgotten souvenirs of travel. The change was magic. Unmounted photographs appeared upon the wall, an ivory Faust and Gretchen from Nuremberg stood, self-centred and unobservant, upon the chimney-shelf among trophies from Turkey, and Japan, Spain, and Norway. A gorgeous _kimono_ served as curtain at the south window, a Persian altar-cloth at the west; and through the west window, the great Peak gazed with stolid indifference upon all that splendor, while the generous Colorado sunshine poured itself in at the south in unstinted measure, just as lavishly as if its one mission had been to illuminate the already gorgeous display. And then, when all was done, Stanwood found to his surprise, that he still liked best to sit at his cabin-door, and watch the play of light on peak and prairie.