The time for Jack to make his regular visit to the mine had also been selected for his wedding trip and Chiquita was to join the newly married pair at Denver, then all three were to "do" Colorado, finishing by spending a few weeks in Estes Park and the Buena Vista ranch, as Chiquita called her wonderful summer abode, later going on to California. Jack had purchased a fine equipment of split bamboo fly rods and all the necessary accompaniments, while Hazel, equally ardent in her admiration of the sport so fascinating to the disciples of Izaak Walton, fashioned, with her own hands, elegant rod cases, fly books and natty garments for the outing. Conspicuous among the latter was a short walking skirt and Eton jacket of brown duck, trimmed with bands of white and studded with brass buttons, in which she arrayed herself and practiced fly casting for imaginary trout on the lawn. A stop of an hour in Boston gave them barely time to transfer across the city of crooked streets to the Albany station and to settle themselves for the long ride to Chicago. Jack provided in advance for plenty of room, engaging a sleeper section.
By the time the train had shot past the beautiful suburban cities of Auburn and the Newtons and rolled into Framingham Mr. and Mrs. Sheppard were quite at home. They commenced to congratulate themselves on looking like old married folks and that no one would suspect them of being bride and groom.
"Jack, you know something?" said Hazel in her speculative way that always meant a favor to come.
"Well, sweetheart, what is it?" Jack presumed it was a glass of water or apples or that her pillow was not right.
"Well, you know."
Jack knew then that something more than ordinary was coming; that "you know" indicated not an uncertainty, but was the usual signal for a "hold up"—nothing short of opera tickets—and the young man wondered what unsatisfied desire was about to be "you knowed."
"Well, you know that little descriptive story you wrote of Estes Park, read it to me."
So Mr. Jack resurrected the tale from its pocket in his suit case and in his rich, modulated voice, read the story for the x—th time, he thought:
"Peerless Estes! That miniature world wilderness of wonder and delight! Set apart for the tired brain and careworn wreck from the sepulchers of business activity! A sweet paradise nestled amidst the encircling snow-capped peaks whose somber heads rise far above the habitat of microbe and parasite. Those silent peaks silhouetted against an ethereal dome of deepest blue or blackest star-bespangled canopy of night! The mountain air of Estes; the elixir compounded by nature for reinvigorating battling civilization!
"This enchanted arena, which pen fails adequately to drape in poetical luxury, was dedicated for combats between rest and toil, health and sickness, vitality and decay. The angler revels in luxury with the numbers of easily accessible pools, riffles, meadows, cañons, the most distant an hour's drive and the majority but ten minutes' walk. Occasionally deer may be seen and the 'Big Horn' come down their aerial stairway from the clouds to lick from the alkali waters in Horseshoe. Wait until you see the chattering magpie, with its bronze equipment and saucy manners. The foe of this long-tailed, noisy inhabitant is a blue jay (the one James Whitcomb Riley calls the 'bird with soldier clothes.') Hours may be spent witnessing the strategy, diplomacy, anger, spite and vindictiveness waged by these bird robbers and desperadoes, for both are notorious house breakers, murderers and thieves in bird land, as well as clever in appropriating kitchen supplies which they surreptitiously seize when opportunity is presented.