After all the articles of incorporation had been read in full, the little group broke up, and crowded around the newly-chosen young officers with many congratulations.
“Great Scott!” ejaculated Ned, “I never was so thunder struck in my life! Accept it? well, I should say so, Mr. Cameron, and with many thanks; you couldn’t have picked out anything that would suit me better. I guess,” he added in a confidential aside to Houston, “I guess that will fix the old fellow down there in Boston all right.”
Guy grasped his father’s hand and Houston’s in a manner that removed every anxiety from their minds.
“It is more than satisfactory,” he said, “more than I could wish.”
The following day, Mr. Whitney, Lindlay and Van Dorn returned east, leaving the “family party” as they laughingly styled themselves, to follow later.
Among the pleasant surprises of those last few days of their stay, it was discovered that Leslie Gladden, whom Mrs. Cameron and Lyle had urged to make her home with them upon their return, was the owner of a palatial residence not many blocks from their own city home, besides having a snug little fortune in bonds and stocks.
Houston’s surprise was unbounded, but remembering how he had won Leslie’s love, there was little he could say.
“I thought you once said you never had a home of your own,” he remarked in considerable perplexity.
“Well,” she replied archly, “a residence is not necessarily a home; it has never been a home to me since my earliest recollection, but it will be one soon, in the truest sense of the word.”
One morning a few days later, they awoke to find the mountains about them white with snow, and a light snowfall in the canyon; and though the latter vanished presently under the balmy breath of a “chinook,” it had given them warning that the winter king was approaching, and would soon seize the scepter from autumn’s hand, to begin his long reign among the mountains.