In the two weeks which elapsed between Ross’s visit to his father and his start for Wyoming he planned hopefully for the year.

"Father has given me a free hand," he told his uncle. "As soon as I can get the work done and the claims patented I am at liberty to come back home, and I tell you I shall hustle. I shall hire as many men as are necessary in Miners’ Camp, and take ’em over to Meadow Creek, where the claims are located, and just rush that work through."

"I wonder," remarked Dr. Grant thoughtfully, "why that man Weimer doesn’t hire it done instead of sending East for some one to manage the matter."

Ross frowned into the open grate before which the two were sitting. "Why, uncle, I never thought of that, and father didn’t mention it. In fact, he knows but very little about Miners’ Camp or Weimer’s work, and you know he hasn’t seen Weimer in years. All he knows about the business is contained in a letter that Weimer got a man named Amos Steele to write. Weimer, it seems, can’t use his eyes to read or write. The letter is very short. That man Steele is a mine-superintendent out there. Father knows about the company which he works for."

"The very idea," cried Aunt Anne a few moments later in tearful indignation, "of Ross Grant’s sending that boy away out West to the jumping-off place into the wilderness without knowing the conditions into which he’s sending him! It’s a shame. He’s our boy, and I don’t want him to go."

The doctor made no reply, but retired precipitately to the office, where he had occupied himself at intervals all day with fitting up an emergency chest for Ross.

The chest was a little oblong, hair-covered strong trunk, which had held all of the doctor’s worldly possessions when, thirty years before, he had started to the medical college just as his brother, Ross’s father, had started West for his financial "start." Into this chest uncle and nephew fitted all sorts of objects medical, from books to bandages.

"When you’re eighty miles from a physician, Ross, and shut in by snow-drifted mountains at that, it’s well to have a few remedies and appliances on hand.""And, when you’re several Sabbath days’ journey from civilization, with time to burn on your hands, it’s also well to have some light literature along," laughed Ross, tucking into the chest Piersol’s "Histology." "I intend to make my time count for myself, as well as for Weimer and father."

Aunt Anne, meantime, was packing another and more modern chest, her tears besprinkling the contents.

"I have put your winter shirts and chamois-skin vest right on top of the tray, Ross," she sobbed as she bade him good-bye. "You better put ’em on as soon as you reach the mountains, as it will be cold there."

"All right, aunt; I shall." Ross’s voice was a little husky as he turned to his uncle.

Dr. Grant was standing beside the vacated breakfast table absorbed in filling a glass of water. Carefully he brimmed it drop by drop.

Aunt Anne peered through her tears. "Why, Fred," she exclaimed, "what are you up to? Don’t make Ross miss his train."

Calmly the doctor added a few more drops, and then turned to his nephew. His eyes narrowed intently as he motioned toward the glass.

"I want to test your nerves, Ross. Hold it out," he directed.The boy smiled confidently, raised the glass, carried it from him the length of a long, steady arm, and held it there. Then he returned it to the table without spilling a drop.

The doctor grasped the hand that had held the glass, looking earnestly into the boy’s eyes.

"Ross, the hand that holds the surgeon’s knife successfully must keep as steady as this."

For a long, silent moment uncle and nephew looked into each other’s faces as their hands gripped. Ross made no reply, but in the expression which leaped to his eyes the older man read the resolution which satisfied him, and which seemed a part of this slow, steady nephew of his.

An hour later the boy was being borne westward on the way to Chicago and the "jumping-off place into the wilderness."

At the same time his father sat behind his desk on Broadway reading a letter postmarked Cody, Wyo., and signed D. H. Leonard. It was written in reply to a recent communication from Ross Grant, Senior.

"Of course I shall be glad to do anything in my power for your son," the letter read, "along the lines you have suggested. I see the wisdom of your move, too. It doesn’t always do to refuse a boy’s demands point-blank. It’s far better to turn him from his purpose as you are doing–or trying to do, I should say, because, if young Ross is anything like old Ross, he will not be so easily turned. Yet, as you say, a little stirring up and jostling out of his uncle’s beaten tracks may put some new ideas into his head. This country certainly bids fair to be stirring enough now to fascinate any young man. It’s a good idea also to give him a half-share in your share of the claims; and I’m sure, if the railroad makes good its promise of a way up to Miners’ Camp, the claims will be worth working for. And, as a real estate dealer, I don’t need to be urged to do my best to interest him in the business of this vast land, the country of the future."

In Chicago a telegram overtook Ross. It was from his father. "Stop overnight at Hotel Irma, Cody," it read. "Leonard will meet you there."

Two days later, early in the morning, the west bound express dropped Ross Grant and half a dozen other passengers at Toluca, in southern Montana, a station with a water-tank and some cattle corrals attached. Here stood the train which by day plied over the branch road to Cody, and by night returned to Toluca. It was a mixed train consisting of freight and express cars with a sleeper at the end.

The half dozen passengers, reËnforced by others left by the east bound express, all men, transferred themselves to this coach. Every one except Ross seemed to be more or less acquainted with every one else. Ross sat silent, listening and looking out on as much of the great West as was visible from the slowly moving car. Across the windswept, sun-cracked plain grumbled the old engine. On either side were herds of cattle fattening on the dusty dried grass, which looked to Ross dead and worthless. Not a tree met his eyes, and not a house.

"Got the Western fever yet?" drawled a voice behind him finally, and Ross looked around into the good-natured face of a man who had boarded the north bound express at Omaha.

Ross shook his head decidedly. "There’s nothing here to give a fellow the Western fever," he returned, pointing to the flat yellow plain overlaid by the dull yellow sunshine.

The man lounged forward, his elbows on the back of Ross’s seat, and grinned. He was apparently about thirty, short and fair, with sandy hair and mustache. He wore corduroy trousers and coat, with a dark flannel shirt and turn-over collar under which was knotted carelessly a broad green silk tie. Hanging to the back of his head was a brown, broad-brimmed hat, the crown encircled with a narrow band of intricately woven hair dyed in all the colors of the rainbow."I’ll tell ye what’s out there that gives most of us the Western fever," he declared; "and that’s money prospects. Sort of a yellow fever, ye know, it is, except that no one wants to be cured."

"Then I don’t want to catch it in the first place," declared Ross, looking out of the window again.

Presently some one in the rear of the car lowered a newspaper, and rumbled over the top of it:

"You fellers rec’lect old man Quinn?"

Some did; some did not. To the latter, the speaker explained.

"Used to live in Cody. Friend of Buffalo Bill, old man Quinn was. Went down to Oklahomy five years ago, and bought a sheep ranch. He and some of the cattlemen around him got by the ears over how much of the range belonged to the sheep––"

Here an inarticulate murmur sounded through the car. There was a "cattle war" on in Wyoming at that time.

"Wall, one night two years ago about now, after a big round-up at North Fork, one thousand of old man Quinn’s sheep was driven over the bluffs into North Fork River. All that old man Quinn could find out was that four men done it. But he kept a-tryin’ to find out, and got a detective down from Kansas City, feller who used to be a cow puncher himself; and he nabbed three of ’em. They had had the gall to stay right there on the range all this time."

"Good reason," volunteered some one, "why it took so long to land ’em. I suppose old man Quinn was lookin’ for ’em among the punchers that had left after the round-up."

"Jest so," declared the informant. "He was tryin’ to track up every one who cleared out after the round-up–jest so."

"How long did they git?" asked some one further up the aisle.

"Two years."

"Sandy," some one across the aisle said to the man behind Ross, "wa’n’t you down t’ Oklahomy punchin’ two year ago?"

There was a perceptible pause. Then a note of irritation spoke through Sandy’s drawl as he answered briefly, "No, north Texas."

And, while the rest continued the discussion concerning old man Quinn, he leaned forward and devoted himself to Ross.

Presently they came to the hills whose barrenness and sombreness were relieved at intervals by the brilliant coloring of the rocks.

"Well," asked Sandy, "what do ye think of this? It ain’t every day East that ye can walk around the crater of an old volcano.""Is this––" began Ross, his head out of the window.

"This is!" chuckled he of the sandy hair.

The train was crawling slowly around the edge of a wide, shallow well, on all sides of which the hills frowned darkly, stripped of every vestige of verdure.

"An extinct volcano!" ejaculated Ross.

"Yep,"–the other sagged forward until his laughing face was close to Ross’s,–"but just let me tell ye right here, young man, that volcanoes is the only thing in the West that’s extinct. Everything else is pretty lively."

Ross joined in the laugh which greeted this sally all around him. The man opposite lowered his paper, and looked over his glasses.

"Volcanoes and hopes, Sandy," he amended quickly, instantly retiring again behind his paper.

Ross did not understand the significance of the retort, but he noticed that several men around exchanged glances and that Sandy’s face lost a fraction of its good nature. And when Sandy’s face lost its humorous expression, it was not pleasing.

Dusk and Cody drew near together. The train dropped over the "rim," and steamed along through the Big Horn Basin, coming to a final standstill in front of another station and water-tank."Cody," announced the brakeman. "All out."

Ross, suitcase in hand, his top-coat over his arm, stumbled out of the train, still swaying with the perpetual motion of the last few days. A big open wagon with side seats stood beside the platform. At the call of the driver Ross looked around interrogatively at Sandy, who was still beside him.

"Oh, we’re two miles from the town yet," Sandy replied to the look. "Pile in. Train can’t make it over the shelves between here and Stinkin’ Water."

Ross silently "piled in." Sandy sat down beside him, and the wagon filled with the other passengers.

Behind them, stretching back into the darkness, their heads sagging sleepily, was a row of teams, their neck-yokes joined by a chain, their heads connected by a single rein running through the ring at the left side of the bit.

"Hey, there," called one of the men in the wagon, "does Grasshopper strike the trail to-night for Meeteetse?"

"Yep," came a voice beside a lantern which was traveling to and fro. "There’s a lot of freight to pack up to Miners’ Camp; and, if it gits there ahead of the snow, these freighters have got to hit the pike more rapid than they have been doin’."

A horseman dashed past the wagon and into the circle of light from the lantern hung in front of the station. Dropping the reins to the ground, he swung his leather-enveloped legs off the horse, and yelled at the station agent:

"Have those boxes of apples come yet?"

"Just here," replied the holder of the moving light.

"Can’t you start ’em up by the Meeteetse stage to-night?" demanded the newcomer. "The boys are about famished."

"Them surveyors," complained the agent, "are always hollerin’ for more grub. ’N’ no matter how much ye fill ’em, they don’t go faster than molasses in January. Ain’t got beyond Sagehen Roost this minute, and they’ll probably be a-quittin’ in a month."

Ross pricked up his ears. The same interest was manifested by Sandy.

"Don’t you worry about our quitting," the newcomer returned brusquely; "if the Burlington Railroad starts out to run a track up to Miners’ Camp, why, it will run one, that’s all, if the track has to go under snow-sheds all the way up from the Meadows."

At this point the big open bus rumbled off over the dust-choked "shelf" toward Cody. An unwieldy swaying coach drawn by four horses passed them on its way to the station."Meeteetse stage is late to-night," remarked Sandy.

On rumbled the wagon. Its brake screamed against the wheel as the horses plunged down the steep inclines which marked the descent from one "shelf" to another. Presently a vile odor greeted Ross’s nostrils, and at the same time the wagon struck the bridge over the sulphurated waters of the Shoshone, and began the climb on the other side.

Ross was keenly alive to this strange new world in which the convenience of the East met the newness and crudeness of the West. Brilliant electric lights illuminated dust-deep, unpaved, unsprinkled streets. Tents stood beside pretentious homes, and stone business blocks were rising beside offices located in canvas wagons with rounded tops. And to and fro past the wagon flashed horsemen, cowboys dressed like Sandy except that their corduroy trousers were incased in leather "chaps."

Sandy, watching Ross out of the corner of his eye, grinned at the boy’s expression.

"Buck up here, tenderfoot," he advised good-naturedly. "This here is ’The Irma’; and, if you’ve got any better hotels in the East, why, don’t tell Colonel Cody of it, at any rate, for ’The Irma’ is the Colonel’s pet."

Then Ross found himself in the foyer of "The Irma," the hotel that "Buffalo Bill" erected to honor his home town, which bears his name, a comfortable, modernly equipped house decorated with hundreds of paintings, water colors, and etchings, all picturing the scenes in Colonel Cody’s life as represented in his "Wild West Show."

Sandy had registered in advance of Ross, and stepped to a swinging door at the end of the counter. There he stopped and turned back. "Come on and have a drink, tenderfoot," he invited good-naturedly.

Ross was writing his name, and did not look up. "No, thank you," he returned quietly. "I don’t drink."

Several men lounging about glanced curiously at the boy. Sandy thrust his hands into his pockets, and, leaning against the counter, looked at him in open interest.

After Ross had registered, he drew a nickel from his pocket and laid it on the counter. "A two-cent stamp, please."

The clerk, impatient with the deliberation of his movements, cast the nickel hurriedly into the cash drawer and handed out a stamp. Ross waited for the change, while three men behind him pressed forward to the register.

Sandy grinned broadly. "There’s no change comin’, tenderfoot," he said with a chuckle. "You’ve reached a land where nothin’ less’n a nickel can be got outside a post-office."

"Pennies don’t grow in the Rocky Mountains," added the clerk in a tone which plainly invited the boy to move on.

The tone brought the blood to Ross’s cheek. His eyes suddenly narrowed. His head went up, and his voice quickened and deepened.

"Very well, then," he returned coolly, "give me another two-cent stamp and a postal card."

Sandy patted his thigh softly. "You’ll pass, tenderfoot," he murmured. "No flies on you–at least, they don’t stick there."

Ross took his trophies, and retired to a desk beside the swinging door. Just as he had finished directing a letter to his Aunt Anne he noticed that his new friend was waiting again beside the counter.

When the last man had registered, Sandy pulled the book toward him and leaned over it. Suddenly he bent lower, and jabbed hard on the page with his forefinger. When he turned, all the good humor had dropped out of his face. With a glance of keen interest at the boy beside the desk he passed on into the barroom.

So marked was the change in his manner that Ross paused in the act of dipping his pen into the ink-well."Guess I’ll see who Sandy is," he thought, and, dropping his pen, crossed to the book.

The name stared up at him in big bold letters directly above his own, but he had not noticed it at the time of registering.

"Allen McKenzie, Miners’ Camp."