IN THE HEART OF THE ROCKIES

CHAP.


I. TOM'S CHOICE
II. FINDING FRIENDS
III. ON THE PLAINS
IV. LEAPING HORSE
V. IN DANGER
VI. UNITED
VII. CHASED
VIII. IN SAFETY
IX. A BAD TIME
X. AN AVALANCHE
XI. WINTER
XII. THE SNOW FORT
XIII. A FRESH START
XIV. AN INDIAN ATTACK
XV. THE COLORADO
XVI. AFLOAT IN CANOES
XVII. THE GRAND CANON
XVIII. BACK TO DENVER
XIX. A FORTUNE


CHAPTER I

TOM'S CHOICE


"I can be of no use here, Carry. What am I good for? Why, I could not
earn money enough to pay for my own food, even if we knew anyone who
would help me to get a clerkship. I am too young for it yet. I would
rather go before the mast than take a place in a shop. I am too young
even to enlist. I know just about as much as other boys at school, and I
certainly have no talent anyway, as far as I can see at present. I can
sail a boat, and I won the swimming prize a month ago, and the sergeant
who gives us lessons in single-stick and boxing says that he considers
me his best pupil with the gloves, but all these things put together
would not bring me in sixpence a week. I don't want to go away, and
nothing would induce me to do so if I could be of the slightest use to
you here. But can I be of any use? What is there for me to look forward
to if I stay? I am sure that you would be always worrying over me if I
did get some sort of situation that you would know father and mother
would not have liked to see me in, and would seem to offer no chance for
the future, whereas if I went out there it would not matter what I did,
and anything I earned I could send home to you."

The speaker was a lad of sixteen. He and his sister, who was two years
his senior, were both dressed in deep mourning, and were sitting on a
bench near Southsea Castle looking across to Spithead, and the Isle of
Wight stretching away behind. They had three days before followed their
mother to the grave, and laid her beside their father, a lieutenant of
the navy, who had died two years before. This was the first time they
had left the house, where remained their four sisters--Janet, who came
between Carry and Tom; Blanche, who was fourteen; Lucie, twelve; and
Harriet, eight. Tom had proposed the walk.

"Come out for some fresh air, Carry," he had said. "You have been shut
up for a month. Let us two go together;" and Carry had understood that
he wanted a talk alone with her. There was need, indeed, that they
should look the future in the face. Since Lieutenant Wade's death their
means had been very straitened. Their mother had received a small
pension as his widow, and on this, eked out by drafts reluctantly drawn
upon the thousand pounds she had brought him on her marriage, which had
been left untouched during his lifetime, they had lived since his death.
Two hundred pounds had been drawn from their little capital, and the
balance was all that now remained. It had long been arranged that Carry
and Janet should go out as governesses as soon as they each reached the
age of eighteen, but it was now clear that Carry must remain at home in
charge of the young ones.