It is a glorious winter day. Denver, standing1 on her high plateau under a thrilling green-blue sky, is masked in snow and glittering with sunlight. The Capitol building is actually in armor, and throws off the shafts2 of the sun until the beholder3 is dazzled and the outlines of the building are lost in a blaze of reflected light. The stone terrace is a white field over which fiery4 reflections dance, and the trees and bushes are faithfully repeated in snow—on every black twig5 a soft, blurred6 line of white. From the terrace one looks directly over to where the mountains break in their sharp, familiar lines against the sky. Snow fills the gorges7, hangs in scarfs on the great slopes, and on the peaks the fiery sunshine is gathered up as by a burning-glass.
Howard Archie is standing at the window of his private room in the offices of the San Felipe Mining Company, on the sixth floor of the Raton Building, looking off at the mountain glories of his State while he gives dictation to his secretary. He is ten years older than when we saw him last, and emphatically ten years more prosperous. A decade of coming into things has not so much aged8 him as it has fortified9, smoothed, and assured him. His sandy hair and imperial conceal10 whatever gray they harbor. He has not grown heavier, but more flexible, and his massive shoulders carry fifty years and the control of his great mining interests more lightly than they carried forty years and a country practice. In short, he is one of the friends to whom we feel grateful for having got on in the world, for helping11 to keep up the general temperature and our own confidence in life. He is an acquaintance that one would hurry to overtake and greet among a hundred. In his warm handshake and generous smile there is the stimulating12 cordiality of good fellows come into good fortune and eager to pass it on; something that makes one think better of the lottery13 of life and resolve to try again.
When Archie had finished his morning mail, he turned away from the window and faced his secretary. “Did anything come up yesterday afternoon while I was away, T. B.?”
Thomas Burk turned over the leaf of his calendar. “Governor Alden sent down to say that he wanted to see you before he sends his letter to the Board of Pardons. Asked if you could go over to the State House this morning.”
Archie shrugged14 his shoulders. “I’ll think about it.”
The young man grinned.
“Anything else?” his chief continued.
T. B. swung round in his chair with a look of interest on his shrewd, clean-shaven face. “Old Jasper Flight was in, Dr. Archie. I never expected to see him alive again. Seems he’s tucked away for the winter with a sister who’s a housekeeper15 at the Oxford16. He’s all crippled up with rheumatism17, but as fierce after it as ever. Wants to know if you or the company won’t grub-stake him again. Says he’s sure of it this time; had located something when the snow shut down on him in December. He wants to crawl out at the first break in the weather, with that same old burro with the split ear. He got somebody to winter the beast for him. He’s superstitious18 about that burro, too; thinks it’s divinely guided. You ought to hear the line of talk he put up here yesterday; said when he rode in his carriage, that burro was a-going to ride along with him.”
Archie laughed. “Did he leave you his address?”
“He didn’t neglect anything,” replied the clerk cynically19.
“Well, send him a line and tell him to come in again. I like to hear him. Of all the crazy prospectors20 I’ve ever known, he’s the most interesting, because he’s really crazy. It’s a religious conviction with him, and with most of ’em it’s a gambling21 fever or pure vagrancy22. But Jasper Flight believes that the Almighty23 keeps the secret of the silver deposits in these hills, and gives it away to the deserving. He’s a downright noble figure. Of course I’ll stake him! As long as he can crawl out in the spring. He and that burro are a sight together. The beast is nearly as white as Jasper; must be twenty years old.”
“If you stake him this time, you won’t have to again,” said T. B. knowingly. “He’ll croak24 up there, mark my word. Says he never ties the burro at night now, for fear he might be called sudden, and the beast would starve. I guess that animal could eat a lariat25 rope, all right, and enjoy it.”
“I guess if we knew the things those two have eaten, and haven’t eaten, in their time, T. B., it would make us vegetarians26.” The doctor sat down and looked thoughtful. “That’s the way for the old man to go. It would be pretty hard luck if he had to die in a hospital. I wish he could turn up something before he cashes in. But his kind seldom do; they’re bewitched. Still, there was Stratton. I’ve been meeting Jasper Flight, and his side meat and tin pans, up in the mountains for years, and I’d miss him. I always halfway27 believe the fairy tales he spins me. Old Jasper Flight,” Archie murmured, as if he liked the name or the picture it called up.
A clerk ca............