There was a good road between Temple's ranch and Tom St. Clair's place, and when, after a time, Tom and Peggy had a tutor imported for their own especial benefit, the two families became very friendly indeed.
Dick Temple was a well-set-up and really brave and good-looking lad. Little Peggy averred that there never had been, or never could be, another boy half so nice as Dick.
But I may as well state here at once and be done with it--Dick was simply a reckless, wild dare-devil. Nothing else would suffice to describe young Dick's character even at this early age. And he soon taught Roland to be as reckless as himself.
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Time rolled on, and the new Burnley Hall was a fait accompli.
The site chosen by Tom for his home by the river was a rounded and wooded hill about a quarter of a mile back from the immediate bank of the stream. But all the land between the hill and the Amazon was cultivated, and not only this, but up and down the river as well for over a mile, for St. Clair wanted to avoid too close contact with unfriendly alligators, and these scaly reptiles avoid land on which crops are growing.
The tall trees were first and foremost cleared off the hill; not all though. Many of the most beautiful were left for effect, not to say shade, and it was pleasant indeed to hear the wind whispering through their foliage, and the bees murmuring in their branches, in this flowery land of eternal summer.
Nor was the undergrowth of splendid shrubs and bushes and fruit-trees cleared away. They were thinned, however, and beautiful broad winding walks led up through them towards the mansion.
The house was one of many gables; altogether English, built of quartz for the most part, and having a tower to it of great height.
From this tower one could catch glimpses of the most charming scenery, up and down the river, and far away on the other shore, where forests swam in the liquid air and giant hills raised their blue tops far into the sky.