"Mother, it is too long a story to relate now; but when I return from Abilene I'll give all the particulars. It is ten now," he said, glancing at his watch, "and we must start at six sharp, in the morning, so there is but little time to spare."
"Yes," said the colonel, recovering from the stupor of amazement into which he had fallen, "we will start to the land-office early in the morning; for I have determined to invest twenty thousand of our new-found money in land; it seems providential that it should come just now. I had been grieving so much of late that this golden opportunity would pass by; but, thank God! it will come out right yet."
Maud, ever tactful and alert, seeing that Clifford was unwilling to explain the particulars of the discovery, hurried their departure for home. When they had all driven away, young Warlow filled one of the sacks with coin, and placed it in a trunk of clothing that was ready packed, locked the door behind, and slowly rowed down; but he had delayed long enough to be certain of finding that they had all retired when he arrived home.
In the morning Colonel Warlow was too unwell to appear at the breakfast-table, and finding that his indisposition was of too serious a nature to admit of his traveling that day, Clifford received twenty thousand dollars—nearly thirteen hundred Mexican doubloons—from his father, with the instruction to invest it in land at his discretion. The colonel told Clifford at parting to consider half of the money as his own; so with a light heart the youth started out on his third essay at "fortune hunting."
Accompanied by Squire Moreland and Ralph, who had unconsciously helped to load the Warlow carriage with more than seventy thousand dollars in gold, secreted in two innocent-looking trunks, Clifford took the winding trail for Abilene just as the sun appeared above the rim of the eastern hills. It was a cool, dry July morning, very favorable for producing that Western phenomenon, the mirage; and as they emerged from the corn-fields and tall thickets of blue-stem of the valley onto the rolling uplands, carpeted with buffalo-grass, a scene of mysterious grandeur burst upon their sight.
Objects that were miles away appeared close at hand, plain and distinct in the pure, clear air; and although a lofty ridge twenty miles wide interposed, all the valley of the Smoky Hill was rolled out like a map before them. The winding river, fringed by trees and groves; the wide prairie valley, flecked with white villages; a long train on the Union Pacific, "fleeing like a dragon through the level fields and leaving a breath of smoke behind," seemed but a few miles away.
The Iron Mound, sixty miles distant, loomed off to the north-west, and far beyond appeared the faint outline of the Soldier's Cap—a towering headland, that, like a giant's helmet, seemed to guard all the Saline Valley, but now dwarfed, by the hundred miles which intervened, to a mere dot upon the horizon.
The Smoky Hills flamed up in a long line of purple, jagged buttes on the west, while to the south stretched away the fat prairies of the Russian Mennonite colony, their quaint, old-world villages of thatch and white-plastered adobe clustering thickly over the level plain that was begemmed by lakes of waving water, or what appeared to be such, but which in reality was only an optical illusion caused by a glare of rarefied atmosphere. Soon these phantom lakes began to flood the prairie with a wavering shimmer. Broad rivers became momentarily wider, until all the landscape was submerged and the villages swam in a sea of water a moment, sinking down at length like foundered ships, the white buildings towering up strangely like masts, which, at last, all sank from sight, leaving only a glare of silver behind.
Soon nature resumed her wonted aspect, though it seemed strangely unreal to see the Iron Mound sink slowly as they ascended the ridge, until it was lost to view, and what had been the Smoky Valley but a moment before was now the rolling highland which they had to traverse for hours before reaching their destination. For a space of twenty miles square, not a solitary house was to be seen. In fact, after leaving the valley the only sign of life visible was a distant herd along some timber-fringed stream, by which the picturesque and fertile tract was threaded, or a long line of antelope, that would cautiously keep to the highest ridges as they loped away in single file.
The ridged and travel worn-trail, where in former years the herds of Texas and New Mexico had been driven along to Abilene, was now disused and lonely, as the traffic had been transferred to more western points; so our friends were relieved on reaching their destination after a monotonous drive of half a day.