Next morning he was out early, and entered the canyon as the sun began
to illumine its rocky domes and cast long shafts of light across the
chasm. A summer morning ride through a canyon of the Rockies is always
an inspiration, but Rupert was not conscious of it. Again, at noon, he
fed his horse a bag of grain, and let him crop the scanty bunch-grass on
the narrow hillside. A slice of bread from his pocket, dipped into the
clear stream, was his own meal. Then, out of the canyon, and up the
mountain, and over the divide he went. All that afternoon he rode over a
stretch of sagebrush plain. It was nearly midnight when he stopped at a
mining camp. In the morning he sold his horse for three twenty-dollar
gold pieces, and with his bundle on his back, walked to the railroad
station, a distance of seven miles.
"I want a ticket," said he to the man at the little glass window.
"Where to?"
"To--to--well, to Chicago."
The man looked suspiciously at Rupert, and then turned to a card hanging
on the wall.
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