The teacher stepped out into the living room, which was in festive array. Its picturesqueness appealed to her. A large fire crackled on the hearth, and threw its transforming glow over the dingy adobe walls, decorated for the occasion with branches of fragrant silver spruce. Blocks of pine tree-trunks, perhaps two feet in height, stood in the corners of the room. Each of these blocks contained a dozen or more candle sockets, serving the purpose of a candelabrum. Each of the sockets bore a lighted candle, which added to the weirdness of the scene. The room was a unique background for the men and women gathered there. At least twenty of the mountaineers had already assembled. They had come at late twilight, and would stay till dawn, for their journey lay over rough mountain roads and through dangerous passes. The guests gathered rapidly, laughing and talking as they came. It was a motley crowd,--cowboys, in corduroy, high boots, spurs, slouch hats, and knives at belt, brawny specimens of human kind; cowlasses, who for the time, had discarded their masculine attire of short skirts, blouse, belt and gun, for feminine finery; Scotchmen in Highland costume; Mexicans in picturesque dress; English folk, clad in modest apparel; and Irishmen and Americans resplendent in colors galore. For a moment, Esther stood studying the novel scene. Mr. Clayton, observing her, presented her to the individuals already assembled. The last introduction was to a shambling, awkward young miner. After shaking the hand of the teacher, which he did with a vigor quite commensurate to his elephantine strength, he blurted out, "Will yez dance a polky wid me?" She asked to be excused, saying she did not dance. "Oh, but I can learn yez," he said eagerly. "Yez put one fut so, and the other _so_," illustrating the step with bovine grace as he spoke. His efforts were unavailing, so he found a partner among the cowlasses. Again Esther was alone. She seated herself near one of the improvised pine candelabra, and continued to study the people before her. Here she found primitive life indeed, life close to the soil. How to get at these people, how to learn their natures, how to understand their needs, how to help them,--all these questions pressed upon her. Of this she was sure:--she must come in touch with them to help them. Men and women older and more experienced than she might well have knit their brows over the problem. She was roused to a consciousness of present need by a piercing cry from one of the infants in the adjoining room. The helpless cry of a child could never appeal in vain to such a woman as Esther Bright. She returned to the bedroom, lifted the wailing bundle in her arms, seated herself in a rocker, and proceeded to quiet it. Kenneth Hastings stood watching her, while an occasional smile flitted across his face. As John Clayton joined him, the former said in a low tone: "Do you see Miss Bright's new occupation, John?"