"Won't you want your letters?"
"Oh, I guess there won't be any worth coming for till then."
"Not a letter from your mother?"
"She only writes once in a while. Most of what I get comes from pa."
"Cousin Olivia never did seem to care much for Clarence," remarked Clover, after they were gone. "He would have been a great deal nicer if he had had a pleasanter time at home. It makes such a difference with boys. Now Mr. Templestowe has a lovely mother, I'm sure."
"Oh!" was all the reply that Phil would vouchsafe.
"How queer people are!" thought little Clover to herself afterward. "Neither of those boys quite liked our going on this expedition, I think,—though I'm sure I can't imagine why; but they behaved so differently. Mr. Templestowe thought of us and something which might give us pleasure; and Clarence only thought about himself. Poor Clarence! he never had half a chance till he came here. It isn't all his fault."
The party in the director's car proved a merry one. Mrs. Wade, a jolly, motherly woman, fond of the good things of life, and delighting in making people comfortable, had spared no pains of preparation. There were quantities of easy-chairs and fans and eau-de-cologne; the larder was stocked with all imaginable dainties,—iced tea, lemonade, and champagne cup flowed on the least provocation for all the hot moments, and each table was a bank of flowers. Each lady had a superb bouquet; and on the second day a great tin box of freshly-cut roses met them at Pueblo, so that they came back as gayly furnished forth as they went. Having the privilege of the road, the car was attached or detached to suit their convenience, and this enabled them to command daylight for all the finest points of the excursion.
First of these was the Royal Gorge, where the Arkansas River pours through a magnificent canyon, between precipices so steep and with curves so sharp that only engineering genius of the most daring order could, it would seem, have devised a way through. Then, after a pause at the pretty town of Salida, with the magnificent range of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains in full sight, they began to mount the pass over long loops of rail, which doubled and re-doubled on themselves again and again on their way to the summit. The train had been divided; and the first half with its two engines was seen at times puffing and snorting directly overhead of the second half on the lower curve.
With each hundred feet of elevation, the view changed and widened. Now it was of over-lapping hills set with little mésas, like folds of green velvet flung over the rocks; now of dim-seen valley depths with winding links of silver rivers; and again of countless mountain peaks sharp-cut against the sunset sky,—some rosy pink, some shining with snow.