“Jim.”
“P. S.—Don’t forget me.”
“Poor, lonely soul!” exclaimed Miss Campbell, wiping the moisture from her eyes. “Where are his people, I wonder?”
“He hasn’t any,” answered Nancy. “His father was a miner and he died when Jim was a little boy. He’s worked in lumber camps and lived around like this all his life. I think he’s very gentlemanly, considering. He says Tony has taught him a lot. Jim is only eighteen, you know, although he looks much older.”
Deep down in her heart Miss Campbell made a resolution that she would like to do something very nice for Jim.
They slept that night at Cheyenne, which had once been a rude little frontier town, and was now a handsome city, and the next day pushed on toward Laramie. After riding hundreds of miles over level prairie grounds, the eyes become accustomed to wide stretches of landscape and the mind, too, takes a broader and more generous outlook on life. What is called “the peace of the plains” seems to brood over the traveler.
Our five motorists were filled with this quietude as they went Westward. All the difficulties of the trip and past dangers were forgotten. They were as peaceful as holy pilgrims journeying toward Mecca. At last, late in the afternoon, Billie suddenly stopped the car and pointed silently toward the setting sun. She had caught her first glimpse of the Rocky Mountains.
Far in the distance they lay, the first vague misty opalescent peaks of the great chain which divides the West into countries. They were only the earliest indications of the wild and beautiful scenery of Wyoming through which they were about to pass.
“And after Wyoming comes Utah,” observed Mary Price, thinking aloud.
“And in Utah comes Evelyn,” called Billie.