True to their resolve, the young heads of the High Valley Ranch rode together to St. Helen's next day,—ostensibly to get their letters; in reality to call on their late departed guests. They talked amicably as they went; but unconsciously each was watching the other's mood and speech. To like the same girl makes young men curiously observant of each other.

A disappointment was in store for them. They had taken it for granted that Clover would be as disengaged and as much at their service as she had been in the valley; and lo! she sat on the piazza with a knot of girls about her, and a young man in an extremely "fetching" costume of snow-white duck, with a flower in his button-hole, was bending over her chair, and talking in a low voice of something which seemed of interest. He looked provokingly cool and comfortable to the dusty horsemen, and very much at home. Phil, who lounged against the piazza-rail opposite, dispensed an enormous and meaning wink at his two friends as they came up the steps.

Clover jumped up from her chair, and gave them a most cordial reception.

"How delightful to see you again so soon!" she said. Then she introduced them to a girl in pink and a girl in blue as Miss Perham and Miss Blanchard, and they shook hands with Marian Chase, whom they already knew, and lastly were presented to Mr. Wade, the youth in white. The three young men eyed one another with a not very friendly scrutiny, just veiled by the necessary outward politeness.

"Then you will be all ready for Thursday,—and your brother too, of course,—and my mother will stop for you at half-past ten on her way down," they heard him say. "Miss Chase will go with the Hopes. Oh, yes; there will be plenty of room. No danger about that. We're almost sure to have good weather too. Good-morning. I'm so glad you enjoyed the roses."

There was a splendid cluster of Jacqueminot buds in Clover's dress, at which Clarence glared wrathfully as he caught these words. The only consolation was that the creature in duck was going. He was making his last bows; and one of the girls went with him, which still farther reduced the number of what in his heart Clarence stigmatized as "a crowd."

"I must go too," said the girl in blue. "Good-by, Clover. I shall run in a minute to-morrow to talk over the last arrangements for Thursday."

"What's going to happen on Thursday?" growled Clarence as soon as she had departed.

"Oh, such a delightful thing," cried Clover, sparkling and dimpling. "Old Mr. Wade, the father of young Mr. Wade, whom you saw just now, is a director on the railroad, you know; and they have given him the director's car to take a party over the Marshall Pass, and he has asked Phil and me to go. It is such a surprise. Ever since we came to St. Helen's, people have been telling us what a beautiful journey it is; but I never supposed we should have the chance to take it. Mrs. Hope is going too, and the doctor, and Miss Chase and Miss Perham,—all the people we know best, in fact. Isn't it nice?"

"Oh, certainly; very nice," replied Clarence, in a tone of deep offence. He was most unreasonably in the sulks. Clover glanced at him with surprise, and then at Geoff, who was talking to Marian. He looked a little serious, and not so bright as in the valley; but he was making himself very pleasant, notwithstanding. Surely he had the same causes for annoyance as Clarence; but his breeding forbade him to show whatever inward vexation he may have felt,—certainly not to allow it to influence his manners. Clover drew a mental contrast between the two which was not to Clarence's advantage.

"Who's that fellow anyway?" demanded Clarence. "How long have you known him? What business has he to be bringing you roses, and making up parties to take you off on private cars?"

Something in Clover's usually soft eyes made him stop suddenly.

"I beg your pardon," he said in an altered tone.

"I really think you should," replied Clover, with pretty dignity.

Then she moved away, and began to talk to Geoff, whose grave courtesy at once warmed into cheer and sun.

Clarence, thus left a prey to remorse, was wretched. He tried to catch Clover's eye, but she wouldn't look at him. He leaned against the balustrade moody and miserable. Phil, who had watched these various interludes with interest, indicated his condition to Clover with another telegraphic wink. She glanced across, relented, and made Clarence a little signal to come and sit by her.

After that all went happily. Clover was honestly delighted to see her two friends again. And now that Clarence had recovered from his ill-temper, there was nothing to mar their enjoyment. Geoff's horse had cast a shoe on the way down, it seemed, and must be taken to the blacksmith's, so they did not stay very long; but it was arranged that they should come back to dinner at Mrs. Marsh's.

"What a raving belle you are!" remarked Marian Chase, as the young men rode away. "Three is a good many at a time, though, isn't it?"

"Three what?"

"Three—hem! leaves—to one Clover!"

"It's the usual allowance, I believe. If there were four, now—"

"Oh, I dare say there will be. They seem to collect round you like wasps round honey. It's some natural law, I presume,—gravitation or levitation, which is it?"

"I'm sure I don't know, and don't try to tease me, Poppy. People out here are so kind that it's enough to spoil anybody."

"Kind, forsooth! Do you consider it all pure kindness? Really, for such a belle, you're very innocent."

"I wish you wouldn't," protested Clover, laughing and coloring. "I never was a belle in my life, and that's the second time you've called me that. Nobody ever said such things to me in Burnet."

"Ah, you had to come to Colorado to find out how attractive you could be. Burnet must be a very quiet place. Never mind; you sha'n't be teased, Clover dear. Only don't let this trefoil of yours get to fighting with one another. That good-looking cousin of yours was casting quite murderous glances at poor Thurber Wade just now."

"Clarence is a dear boy; but he's rather spoiled and not quite grown up yet, I think."

"When are you coming back from the Marshall Pass?" inquired Geoff, after dinner, when Clarence had gone for the horses.

"On Saturday. We shall only be gone two days."

"Then I will ride in on Thursday morning, if you will permit, with my field-glass. It is a particularly good one, and you may find it useful for the distant views."

"When are you coming back?" demanded Clarence, a little later. "Saturday? Then I sha'n't be in again before Monday."

"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.

The flowers were a continual marvel. At the top of the pass, eleven thousand feet and more above the sea, their colors and their abundance were more profuse and splendid than on the lower levels. There were whole fields of pentstemons, pink, blue, royal purple, or the rare scarlet variety, like stems of asparagus strung with rubies. There were masses of gillias, and of wonderful coreopsis, enormous cream-colored stars with deep-orange centres, and deep yellow ones with scarlet centres; thickets of snowy-cupped mentzelia and of wild rose; while here and there a tall red lily burned like a little lonely flame in the green, or regiments of convolvuli waved their stately heads.

From below came now and again the tinkle of distant cow-bells. These, and the plaintive coo of mourning-doves in the branches, and the rush of the wind, which was like cool flower-scented wine, was all that broke the stillness of the high places.

"To think I'm so much nearer heaven
Than when I was a boy,"

misquoted Clover, as she sat on the rear platform of the car, with Poppy, and Thurber Wade.

"Are you sure your head doesn't ache? This elevation plays the mischief with some people. My mother has taken to her berth with ice on her temples."

"Headache! No, indeed. This air is too delicious. I feel as though I could dance all the way from here to the Black Canyon."

"You don't look as if your head ached, or anything," said Mr. Wade, staring at Clover admiringly. Her cheeks were pink with excitement, her eyes full of light and exhilaration.

"Oh dear! we are beginning to go down," she cried, watching one of the beautiful peaks of the Sangre de Cristos as it dipped out of sight. "I think I could find it in my heart to cry, if it were not that to-morrow we are coming up again."

So down, down, down they went. Dusk slowly gathered about them; and the white-gloved butler set the little tables, and brought in broiled chicken and grilled salmon and salad and hot rolls and peaches, and they were all very hungry. And Clover did not cry, but fell to work on her supper with an excellent appetite, quite unconscious that they were speeding through another wonderful gorge without seeing one of its beauties. Then the car was detached from the train; and when she awoke next morning they were at the little station called Cimmaro, at the head of the famous Black Canyon, with three hours to spare before the train from Utah should arrive to take them back to St. Helen's.

Early as it was, the small settlement was awake. Lights glanced from the eating-house, where cooks were preparing breakfast for the "through" passengers, and smokes curled from the chimneys. Close to the car was a large brick structure which seemed to be a sort of hotel for locomotives. A number of the enormous creatures had evidently passed the night there, and just waked up. Clover now watched their antics with great amusement from her window as their engineers ran them in and out, rubbed them down like horses, and fed them with oil and coal, while they snorted and backed and sidled a good deal as real horses do. Clover could not at all understand what all these manœuvres were for,—they seemed only designed to show the paces of the iron steeds, and what they were good for.

"Miss Clover," whispered a voice outside her curtains, "I've got hold of a hand-car and a couple of men; and don't you want to take a spin down the canyon and see the view with no smoke to spoil it? Just you and me and Miss Chase. She says she'll go if you will. Hurry, and don't make a noise. We won't wake the others."

Of course Clover wanted to. She finished her dressing at top-speed, hurried on her hat and jacket, stole softly out to where the others awaited her, and in five minutes they were smoothly running down the gorge, over high trestle-work bridges and round sharp curves which made her draw her breath a little faster. There was no danger, the men who managed the hand-car assured them; it was a couple of hours yet before the next train came in; there was plenty of time to go three or four miles down and return.

Anything more delicious than the early morning air in the Black Canyon it would be difficult to imagine. Cool, odorous with pines and with the breath of the mountains, it was like a zestful draught of iced summer. Close beside the track ran a wondrous river which seemed made of melted jewels, so curiously brilliant were its waters and mixed of so many hues. Its course among the rocks was a flash of foaming rapids, broken here and there by pools of exquisite blue-green, deepening into inky-violet under the shadow of the cliffs. And such cliffs!—one, two, three thousand feet high; not deep-colored like those about St. Helen's, but of steadfast mountain hues and of magnificent forms,—buttresses and spires; crags whose bases were lost in untrodden forests; needle-sharp pinnacles like the Swiss Aiguilles. The morning was just making its way into the canyon; and the loftier tops flashed with yellow sun, while the rest were still in cold shadow.

Breakfast was just ready when the hand-car arrived again at the upper end of the gorge, and loud were the reproaches which met the happy three as they alighted from it. Phil was particularly afflicted.

"I call it mean not to wake a fellow," he said.

"But a fellow was so sound asleep," said Clover, "I really hadn't the heart. I did peep in at your curtain, and if you had moved so much as a finger, perhaps I should have called you; but you didn't."

The return journey was equally fortunate, and the party reached St. Helen's late in the evening of the second day, in what Mr. Wade called "excellent form." Monday brought the young men from the ranch in again; and another fortnight passed happily, Clover's three "leaves" being most faithfully attentive to their central point of attraction. "Three is a good many," as Marian Chase had said, but all girls like to be liked, and Clover did not find this, her first little experience of the kind, at all disagreeable.

The excursion to the Marshall Pass, however, had an after effect which was not so pleasant. Either the high elevation had disagreed with Phil, or he had taken a little cold; at all events, he was distinctly less well. With the lowering of his physical forces came a corresponding depression of spirits. Mrs. Watson worried him, the sick people troubled him, the sound of coughing depressed him, his appetite nagged, and his sleep was broken. Clover felt that he must have a change, and consulted Dr. Hope, who advised their going to the Ute Valley for a month.

This involved giving up their rooms at Mrs. Marsh's, which was a pity, as it was by no means certain that they would be able to get them again later. Clover regretted this; but Fate, as Fate often does, brought a compensation. Mrs. Watson had no mind whatever for the Ute Valley.

"It's a dull place, they tell me, and there's nothing to do there but ride on horseback, and as I don't ride on horseback, I really don't see what use there would be in my going," she said to Clover. "If I were young, and there were young men ready to ride with me all the time, it would be different; though Ellen never did care to, except with Henry of course, after they—And I really can't see that your brother's much different from what he was, though if Dr. Hope says so, naturally you—He's a queer kind of doctor, it seems to me, to send lung patients up higher than this,—which is high already, gracious knows. No; if you decide to go, I shall just move over to the Shoshone for the rest of the time that I'm here. I'm sure that Dr. Carr couldn't expect me to stay on here alone, just for the chance that you may want to come back, when as like as not, Mrs. Marsh won't be able to take you again."

"Oh, no; I'm quite sure he wouldn't. Only I thought," doubtfully, "that as you've always admired Phil's room so much, you might like to secure it now that we have to go."

"Well, yes. If you were to be here, I might. If that man who's so sick had got better, or gone away, or something, I dare say I should have settled down in his room and been comfortable enough. But he seems just about as he was when we came, so there's no use waiting; and I'd rather go to the Shoshone anyway. I always said it was a mistake that we didn't go there in the first place. It was Dr. Hope's doing, and I have not the least confidence in him. He hasn't osculated me once since I came."

"Hasn't he?" said Clover, feeling her voice tremble, and perfectly aware of the shaking of Phil's shoulders behind her.

"No; and I don't call just putting his ear to my chest, listening. Dr. Bangs, at home, would be ashamed to come to the house without his stethoscope. I mean to move this afternoon. I've given Mrs. Marsh notice."

So Mrs. Watson and her belongings went to the Shoshone, and Clover packed the trunks with a lighter heart for her departure.

The last day of July found Clover and Phil settled in the Ute Park. It was a wild and beautiful valley, some hundreds of feet higher than St. Helen's, and seemed the very home of peace. A Sunday-like quiet pervaded the place, whose stillness was never broken except by bird-songs and the rustle of the pine branches.

The sides of the valley near its opening were dotted here and there with huts and cabins belonging to parties who had fled from the heat of the plains for the summer. At the upper end stood the ranch house,—a large, rather rudely built structure,—and about it were a number of cabins and cottages, in which two, four, or six people could be accommodated. Clover and Phil were lodged in one of these. The tiny structure contained only a sitting and two sleeping rooms, and was very plain and bare. But there was a fireplace; wood was abundant, so that a cheerful blaze could be had for cool evenings; and the little piazza faced the south, and made a sheltered sitting place on windy days.

One pleasant feature of the spot was its nearness to the High Valley. Clarence and Geoff Templestowe thought nothing of riding four miles; and scarcely a day passed when one or both did not come over. They brought wild-flowers, or cream, or freshly-churned butter, as offerings from the ranch; and, what Clover valued as a greater kindness yet, they brought Phil's beloved broncho, Sorrel, and arranged with the owner of the Ute ranch that it should remain as long as Phil was there. This gave Phil hours of delightful exercise every day; and though sometimes he set out early in the morning for the High Valley, and stayed later in the afternoon than his sister thought prudent, she had not the heart to chide, so long as he was visibly getting better hour by hour.

Sundays the friends spent together, as a matter of course. Geoff waited till his little home service for the ranchmen was over, and then would gallop across with Clarence to pass the rest of the day. There was no lack of kind people at the main house and in the cottages to take an interest in the delicate boy and his sweet, motherly sister; so Clover had an abundance of volunteer matrons, and plenty of pleasant ways in which to spend those occasional days on which the High Valley attaches failed to appear.

It was a simple, healthful life, the happiest on the whole which they had led since leaving home. Once or twice Mr. Thurber Wade made his appearance, gallantly mounted, and freighted with flowers and kind messages from his mother to Miss Carr; but Clover was never sorry when he rode away again. Somehow he did not seem to belong to the Happy Valley, as in her heart she denominated the place.

There was a remarkable deal of full moon that month, as it seemed; at least, the fact served as an excuse for a good many late transits between the valley and the park. Now and then either Clarence or Geoff would lead over a saddle-horse and give Clover a good gallop up or down the valley, which she always enjoyed. The habit which she had extemporized for her visit to the High Valley answered very well, and Mrs. Hope had lent her a hat.

On one of these occasions she and Clarence had ridden farther than usual, quite down to the end of the pass, where the road dipped, and descended to the little watering-place of Canyon Creek,—a Swiss-like village of hotels and lodging-houses and shops for the sale of minerals and mineral waters, set along the steep sides of a narrow green valley. They were chatting gayly, and had just agreed that it was time to turn their horses' heads homeward, when a sudden darkening made them aware that one of the unexpected thunder-gusts peculiar to the region was upon them.

They were still a mile above the village; but as no nearer place of shelter presented itself, they decided to proceed. But the storm moved more rapidly than they; and long before the first houses came in sight the heavy drops began to pelt down. A brown young fellow, lying flat on his back under a thick bush, with his horse standing over him, shouted to them to "try the cave," waving his hand in its direction; and hurrying on, they saw in another moment a shelving brow of rock in the cliff, under which was a deep recess.

To this Clarence directed the horses. He lifted Clover down. She half sat, half leaned on the slope of the rock, well under cover, while he stretched himself at full length on a higher ledge, and held the bridles fast. The horses' heads and the saddles were fairly well protected, but the hindquarters of the animals were presently streaming with water.

"This isn't half-bad, is it?" Clarence said. His mouth was so close to Clover's ear that she could catch his words in spite of the noisy thunder and the roar of the descending rain.

"No; I call it fun."

"You look awfully pretty, do you know?" was the next and very unexpected remark.

"Nonsense."

"Not nonsense at all."

At that moment a carriage dashed rapidly by, the driver guiding the horses as well as he could between the points of an umbrella, which constantly menaced his eyes. Other travellers in the pass had evidently been surprised by the storm besides themselves. The lady who held the umbrella looked out, and caught the picture of the group under the cliff. It was a suggestive one. Clover's hat was a little pushed forward by the rock against which she leaned, which in its turn pushed forward the waving rings of hair which shaded her forehead, but did not hide her laughing eyes, or the dimples in her pink cheeks. The fair, slender girl, the dark, stalwart young fellow so close to her, the rain, the half-sheltered horses,—it was easy enough to construct a little romance.

The lady evidently did so. It was what photographers call an "instantaneous effect," caught in three seconds, as the carriage whirled past; but in that fraction of a minute the lady had nodded and flashed a brilliant, sympathetic smile in their direction, and Clover had nodded in return, and laughed back.

"A good many people seem to have been caught as we have," she said, as another streaming vehicle dashed by.

"I wish it would rain for a week," observed Clarence.

"My gracious, what a wish! What would become of us if it did?"

"We should stay here just where we are, and I should have you all to myself for once, and nobody could come in to interfere with me."

"Thank you extremely! How hungry we should be! How can you be so absurd, Clarence?"

"I'm not absurd at all. I'm perfectly in earnest."

"Do you mean that you really want to stay a week under this rock with nothing to eat?"

"Well, no; not exactly that perhaps,—though if you could, I would. But I mean that I would like to get you for a whole solid week to myself. There is such a gang of people about always, and they all want you. Clover," he went on, for, puzzled at his tone, she made no answer, "couldn't you like me a little?"

"I like you a great deal. You come next to Phil and Dorry with me."

"Hang Phil and Dorry! Who wants to come next to them? I want you to like me a great deal more than that. I want you to love me. Couldn't you, Clover?"

"How strangely you talk! I do love you, of course. You're my cousin."

"I don't care to be loved 'of course.' I want to be loved for myself. Clover, you know what I mean; you must know. I can afford to marry now; won't you stay in Colorado and be my wife?"

"I don't think you know what you are saying, Clarence. I'm older than you are. I thought you looked upon me as a sort of mother or older sister."

"Only fifteen months older," retorted Clarence. "I never heard of any one's being a mother at that age. I'm a man now, I would have you remember, though I am a little younger than you, and know my own mind as well as if I were fifty. Dear Clovy," coaxingly, "couldn't you? You liked the High Valley, didn't you? I'd do anything possible to make it nice and pleasant for you."

"I do like the High Valley very much," said Clover, still with the feeling that Clarence must be half in joke, or she half in dream. "But, my dear boy, it isn't my home. I couldn't leave papa and the children, and stay out here, even with you. It would seem so strange and far away."

"You could if you cared for me," replied Clarence, dejectedly; Clover's kind, argumentative, elder-sisterly tone was precisely that which is most discouraging to a lover.

"Oh, dear," cried poor Clover, not far from tears herself; "this is dreadful!"

"What?" moodily. "Having an offer? You must have had lots of them before now."

"Indeed I never did. People don't do such things in Burnet. Please don't say any more, Clarence. I'm very fond of you, just as I am of the boys; but—"

"But what? Go on."

"How can I?" Clover was fairly crying.

"You mean that you can't love me in the other way."

"Yes." The word came out half as a sob, but the sincerity of the accent was unmistakable.

"Well," said poor Clarence, after a long bitter pause; "it isn't your fault, I suppose. I'm not good enough for you. Still, I'd have done my best, if you would have taken me, Clover."

"I am sure you would," eagerly. "You've always been my favorite cousin, you know. People can't make themselves care for each other; it has to come in spite of them or not at all,—at least, that is what the novels say. But you're not angry with me, are you, dear? We will be good friends always, sha'n't we?" persuasively.

"I wonder if we can," said Clarence, in a hopeless tone. "It doesn't seem likely; but I don't know any more about it than you do. It's my first offer as well as yours." Then, after a silence and a struggle, he added in a more manful tone, "We'll try for it, at least. I can't afford to give you up. You're the sweetest girl in the world. I always said so, and I say so still. It will be hard at first, but perhaps it may grow easier with time."

"Oh, it will," cried Clover, hopefully. "It's only because you're so lonely out here, and see so few people, that makes you suppose I am better than the rest. One of these days you'll find a girl who is a great deal nicer than I am, and then you'll be glad that I didn't say yes. There! the rain is just stopping."

"It's easy enough to talk," remarked Clarence, gloomily, as he gathered up the bridles of the horses; "but I shall do nothing of the kind. I declare I won't!"