Page:Peak and Prairie (1894).pdf/171

 I ruther guess I was, all except the gumption. 'T was kind o' curous, too," he went on, warming to his subject, and fumbling at something on the side of his head. "When the bullet ploughed through here, the settin' sun was in my eyes; 'n soon's I got on my feet agin I wanted to go West. I was let go there in Virginia, 'n though I hankered after my own folks as bad as anybody, there was nothin' for it, but to turn toward the settin' sun. 'N fust I went to Ohio, 'n then to Illinois, 'n then to Missouri, 'n so on here. Never could manage to stop more 'n a few years in one place till I come up agin the Rocky Mountings. Since then I've felt kind o' settled and satisfied."

But Simon's satisfaction was destined to be rudely broken in upon.

One pleasant September day somebody picked up something in the Gulch that looked like a dingy bit of quartz, and carried it down to Springtown, and shortly after that a squad of men appeared upon the scene. The mountains, faithless to their trust, had let them in. They gathered together along the Gulch and on the side of Bear Mountain, where Amberley could see them, little remote groups, sometimes losing themselves among the pine-trees, sometimes showing plain against the sky on