VI
THE LAME GULCH PROFESSOR.
Simon Amberley had never been able to strike root in life, until, some ten years since, he found a congenial soil in that remote fastness of the Rocky Mountains known as Lame Gulch. From the first moment of his arrival there it was borne in upon him that this was the goal of his long, apparently aimless pilgrimage, and he lost no time in securing to himself a foothold, by the simple and inexpensive method of taking up a ranch.
The land he chose was higher up the Gulch than any of the neighboring ranches, and all that it was rich in was views. It ran up the side of a hill, seen from the top of which, the whole Rocky Mountain Range had the appearance of marshalling itself in one grand, exhaustive cyclorama. On every hand were snowy summits forming a titanic ring which seemed to concentrate upon Lame Gulch; and much of the sense of aloofness and security which was the chief element in Amberley's content came from the illusion which he carefully guarded, that that wall of giants really was impenetrable. He liked, too, to feel himself at a great altitude above the lower world where he had so long and vainly toiled.
"Nine thousand feet above sea-level!" he would assure himself in self-congratulatory mood. "When I come to quit, I sha' n't hev fur to go!" which confidence in the direction his spirit was destined to take, may fairly be accepted as indication of a good conscience.
Amberley had not married, and although he felt the omission to be matter for regret, he had never, as far as his recollection served him, found his wish to do so particularized in favor of any one woman.
"No, I ain't never married," he reluctantly admitted, when Enoch Baker, his next-door neighbor at Lame Gulch, pressed the point.
Enoch lived with his wife just round on the other side of Bear Mountain, only three miles away, and although his now elderly consort was reputed to be unamiable,—not to say cantankerous,—yet her existence, and the existence in the world outside, of many children and grandchildren, conferred upon him the enviable dignity of a man of family. He was a Yankee, and his thirst for information was not to be lightly appeased.
"Disapp'inted?" he asked, knocking the ashes out of his pipe, and pulling out a venerable tobacco-pouch, with a view to "fillin' her up" again. "Disapp'inted?"
"Yes; ruther,—bein' as I was always fond of children."