They were passing through one of the most fertile valleys of the northwest. Away to the south, a beautiful river glistened like a broad ribbon of silver, and leading from it was a gleaming net-work of irrigating canals and ditches, carrying the life-giving waters over thousands of broad acres; some already green with grass and alfalfa, while others were dotted with scores of men and horses opening the brown earth in long, straight lines of furrows, or scattering broadcast the golden grain. Far in the distance, faintly outlined against the blue sky, was a fleecy, cloud-like mass, grayish blue at the base, with points here and there of dazzling whiteness, which Houston had known at once as the first glimpse of the Rocky Mountains, but which Rutherford failed to notice. "Well," said the latter, withdrawing his head from the window, and preparing to attack his breakfast, "it seems to me, after nearly forty hours of nothing but prairies, it's about time to see some mountains." "They're in sight now," responded Houston quietly. "What!" exclaimed his companion, dropping his knife and fork in haste. "You can see them now; I've been waiting for you to recognize them," said Houston, smiling; "look off there to the southwest," he added, as Rutherford was readjusting his eye-glasses, preparatory to a careful survey of the horizon. "Well, I'll be blessed!" ejaculated the latter, "I supposed those were clouds. My! but they must be mighty far away, twenty-five miles, I expect, at the least." "Sixty miles, at least," said Houston, glancing at them, "perhaps more." "Pardon me, gentlemen," said a bland voice across the aisle, and the young men, turning, saw a much-bejewelled individual, with a florid, but very smiling face; "I see you have not yet become accustomed to the vast distances of this great country of ours in the northwest. Those mountains which you are discussing are about ninety miles distant." Rutherford's eyes expressed an immense amount of incredulity, while Houston simply bowed silently. The man continued: "The wonderful rarity of our atmosphere in these altitudes is something that has to be experienced in order to be thoroughly understood and appreciated, or even believed. You tell an eastern man of the great distances here at which you can see and hear, clearly and readily; he will immediately doubt your veracity, simply because it is without the line of his experience. Now I myself, personally, with my own, unaided vision, have been able to count the mules in a pack-train sixty-three miles distant, and have repeatedly held conversations at a distance of fifteen miles." "Guess the conversation was pretty much all on one side, wasn't it?" asked Rutherford, adding sotto voce to Houston, "as on the present occasion."