converted into a sparkling mirror the somber gloom of a lake sunk in the depths of some secluded valley. Even in Colorado, people of the poetic temperament write in that strain. Now, perhaps, you have some notion of the sort of young man it was who came back to the dog-goned MacGonigal on that June day in the half-forgotten '80's. Add to the foregoing description certain intimate labels--that he was a mining engineer, that he had been educated in the best schools of the Far West, that he was slender, and well knit, and slightly above the middle height, and that he moved with the gait of a horseman and an athlete--and the portrait is fairly complete. The storekeeper was Power's physical antithesis. He was short and fat, and never either walked or rode; but his North of Ireland ancestors had bequeathed him a shrewd brain and a Scottish slowness of speech that gave him time to review his thoughts before they were uttered. No sooner did he hear his visitor's approaching footsteps than he began again to polish the pine boards which barricaded him from the small world of Bison. Such misplaced industry won a smile from the younger man. "Gee whizz, Mac, it makes me hot to see you work!" he cried. "Anyhow, if you've been whirling that duster ever since I blew in you must be tired, so you can quit now, and fix me a bimetallic." With a curious alacrity, the stout MacGonigal threw the duster aside, and reached for a bottle of whisky, an egg, a siphon of soda, and some powdered sugar. Colorado is full of local color, even to the naming of its drinks. In a bimetallic the whole egg is used, and variants of the concoction are a gold fizz and a silver fizz, wherein the yoke and the white figure respectively. "Whar you been, Derry?" inquired the storekeeper, whose massive energy was now concentrated on the proper whisking of the egg. "Haven't you heard? Marten sent me to erect the pump on a placer mine he bought near Sacramento. It's a mighty good proposition, too, and I've done pretty well to get through in four months." "Guess I was told about the mine; but I plumb forgot. Marten was here a bit sence, an' he said nothin'." Power laughed cheerfully. "He'll be surprised to see me, and that's a fact. He counted on the job using up the best part of the summer, right into the fall; but I made those Chicago mechanics open up the throttle, and here I am, having left everything in full swing." "Didn't you write?" "Yes, to Denver. I don't mind telling you, Mac, that I would have been better pleased if the boss was there now. I came slick through, meaning to make Denver tomorrow. Where is he--at the mill?" "He was thar this mornin'."