"I suppose they are getting fast civilized now? All the Bret-Harteism will be swept away before long—eh?"
"Why, yes. We have schools now everywhere, and churches and institutes. They spring up like mushrooms."
"But who builds them? All along the track of the railway I saw big towns growing up. It seems little short of miraculous in so short a time."
"Well," said the young man, with an amused expression on his handsome face, "you see, it is like this. There is a contractor who undertakes to build for each municipality. If they order fifty houses, he throws in a school; if they order a hundred, he throws in a church. It is as well to do the thing handsomely, for he is 'cute enough to know it is a remunerative advertisement."
The ladies now drove up in a char-à-banc with the other two men. Alan Brown, having had the field all to himself for some hours, looked reconciled to life, though he would have preferred life in Piccadilly with Doreen to life under the same conditions in the Rocky Mountains. But the young girl had pacified him, I presume, as to the English baronet, and, indeed, Ballinger showed himself to be so entirely engrossed in the ninety-stamp dry-crushing silver mill, that there was no pretext for a renewal of the young American's jealousy. Mordaunt found an opportunity of whispering to his aunt,
"This is the investment for me. I'm sure I can't do better than get all the shares I can in the new company that is being formed."
But Mrs. Frampton demurred.
"Don't be in a hurry. This climate is really too exciting to judge of anything dispassionately. Wait till we get damper, my dear. I am ready to jump out of my skin." Then, to Pierce, who came up at that moment, "Mr. Caldwell, how do you manage to exist, with your nerves in the constant state of tension they must be in here? When your butler handed me potatoes last night, and touched my shoulder, I nearly screamed, he gave me such a shock. And I find I send out blue sparks every time I turn the brass handle of the door! It is frightful! I am become one vast electric battery!"
"You would no doubt be able to light the gas with your fingers. Some people have more electricity than others. I haven't so much, and get along here very well. And this dry climate has its advantages. We are going to lunch on the mountain-side, if you are not afraid?"
"What! In the snow? To be sure, the sun is very hot, and there is no cold wind—"