“Of course,” continued Tom, “this, bein’ South, and bein’ West, it ain’t really a part of the United States; so I can’t save the whole country.  But, such as this part of the country is, I reckon I’ll have to save it.  You’ll see my name wrote on tablets in marble halls some day; because I’ve got a hard job.  I’ve got to reconcile these folks to your dad!  And yet I’m going to make ’em say, ’Now is the winter of our discontent made glorious summer by this son-of-a-gun from New York.’  You didn’t know I read Shakespeare?  Why, I read him constant, even if I do have to wear specs now for fine print.”

Constance, in spite of herself, laughed outright with so merry a peal that she wakened her father from his slumber.  “What’s that?  What’s that?” broke in Mr. Ellsworth, suddenly sitting up on his blankets.

“Never mind, friend,” said Tom Osby, “you go back to sleep again; me and Miss Constance is savin’ things.  I was just talkin’ to her about her railroad.”

Ellsworth rubbed his eyes.  “By Jove!” he exclaimed suddenly, “that’s a good idea.  It shall be hers if she says so.  I’ll give her every share I own if that road ever runs into the valley.”

“Now you are beginnin’ to talk,” said Tom Osby, calmly.  “Not that you’d be givin’ her much; for you and your lawyer wouldn’t be able to get the railroad in there in a thousand years.  The girl can play a heap stronger game than both of you.”

“Well, if she can,” responded Ellsworth, “she’s going to have a good chance to do it.  We’re going to build the railroad on north, and we don’t feel like hauling coal down that canon by wagon.”

Tom Osby seemed to have pursued his game as far as he cared to do at this time.  “S’pose we stop along somewhere in here,” he suggested, “and eat a little lunch?  My horses gets hungry, and thirsty, the same as you, Mr. Ellsworth.  Whoa, boys!”

Descending from his high seat, he now unhitched his team and strapped on their heads the nose-bags with the precious oats, after a pail of not less precious water from the cask at the wagon’s side.  Methodically he kicked together a little pile of greasewood roots.

“We’re to have some tea, you know,” he remarked.  “I don’t charge nothin’ extry for tea, whiskey, or advice on this railroad of mine.  Get down now, ma’am,” he added, reaching up his arms to assist Constance from her place.  “Come along, set right down here on the ground in the sun.  It’s good for you.  Ain’t it nice?

“There’s the back of old Carrizy just beginnin’ to show,” he explained; “and there’s the Bonitos comin’ up below.  That’s Blanco Peak beyond, the tallest in the Territory; and them mountings close in is the Nogales.  There ain’t a soul within many and many a mile of here.  And now, with them old mountings a-lookin’ down at us on the strict cuidado, not botherin’ us if we don’t bother them, why, ain’t it comfortable?  This country’ll take hold of you after a while, ma’am.  It’s the oldest in the world; but somehow it seems to me onct in a while as if it was about the youngest, too.”