CHAPTER I. NEVADA. Seated in the seagrass chair which he had brought from Hongkong, on the open veranda overlooking the river, Vin gazed with growing admiration at the sparkling water of the Truckee hurrying from its source in beautiful Tahoe to its rest in Pyramid lake, more than two thousand feet below. Vin wished that he might plunge into the crystal water of that ice-cold stream, for the ride across the desert from Las Vegas had been long and tedious, the reflected rays of the June sun had heated the Pullman car almost to suffocation, while the finely powdered alkali dust had burned his eyes and entered every pore. Twenty-odd miles to the southwest towered the snow-crowned summit of Mount Rose. A score of miles to the northwest Peavine mountain reared its lofty crest. In the opposite direction, thirty-five miles away, Mount Davidson was plainly visible. Look where he would, the beautiful valley of the Truckee seemed to be entirely er closed by mountain peaks and ranges, having the suggestion of other and higher peaks and ranges beyond. The sun had just passed below the western range. The higher peaks were gorgeous in the rays of the setting sun. The valley of the Truckee was filled with a radiant mountain twilight. A kingfisher darted from his tree on Belle Isle, and with a shrill cry of triumph plunged into the stream, then arose and flew away with an evening meal for himself and mate. The scent of newly mown alfalfa was in the air. The clouds, slowly rising over the western range, soft as down, were resplendent in all the colors of the rainbow. The sky above was azure blue. The air soft and balmy. Reclining in his chair, Vin thought about the history of the great State in which he had decided to make his home. Nevada, the battleborn state! Nevada, admitted into the sisterhood of States on the day when he first saw the light (began his present incarnation) in far-away Minnesota. Admitted as a State, in order that her vote might make sure the ratification of the work of the Immortal Lincoln. Nevada, with her mighty expanse of desert lands, waiting for some Moses to strike the rock that the life-giving waters might gush forth, calling into existence a nillion prosperous, happy homes. Nevada, with her lofty mountains, her barren crags, bristling with volcanic rock, dreary and desolate as "The Orthodox Hell with the fires out",-yet indescribably magnificent and grand. Nevada, with her vast fertile valleys, her beautiful sunlit lakes and mountain streams, and her rich mines! Nevada, empire wide from east to west, empire long from north to south! All this appealed to Vin. He remembered that when the Nation was in dire difficulty and distress, when the national treasury was exhausted, when bonds of the government of the United States, bearing seven and one-tenth |