percent interest, sold in front of the capitol at Washington for forty-three cents on the dollar,— that Nevada, great, generous sister that she was, opened her exhaustless storehouses and poured more than a billion gold and silver dollars into the resources of the Nation, and brought victory out of defeat. That, after the war was over, Nevada renewed and increased her bounty. Her vast metalic wealth inspired the people of this nation with that enthusiasm which produced an era of industrial and commercial enterprise such as the world had never before seen. It built and equipped great trans-continental railroads; it established great ocean steamship lines; it laid the Atlantic cable; it spanned the globe with telegraph and telephone lines; it hastened the resumption of specie payments; it built costly castles in Europe; it built great cities in our own land; and, it made San Francisco the voluptuous queen of the Pacific. That, then, the blight of demonetization fell across this country, and Nevada slept. Slept! for nearly thirty years. Slept! until the bray of Jim Butler's burro sounded the discovery of Tonopah, of Goldfield, of Manhattan, of Ely, of National and other great mines. But, Vin reflected that, gold and silver are no longer the only nor even the principal wealth within her borders. That, the dining-car had been supplied with plums, peaches and figs from Pahrump, with lettuce and tomatoes from Las Vegas, with cantaloupe from Mason Vallty. He looked to Yerington and to Ely, the greatest copper camps in the world; he looked

to Fallon and to Lovelock, to all the places in this great State, where irrigation and agriculture are becoming a principal factor in the industrial life of this commonwealth, and he said: "Important as has been her mineral production, exhaustless as her wealth seems in that regard, the production of fruit and grain will make Nevada great!"

Nevada has made men famous in law and in literature, in finance and in statesmanship. Her early senators were giants in the councils of this Nation. She fixed in history the names of Fair, Flood, Jones, Mackay, Ralston, Sharon, Sutro, Stewart, Mark Twain, and many others, and on the Comstock, in Nevada, were written the mining laws of this Nation, the fairest and best of any statutes on that subject in the world.

Although Vin had only been in the State for a few months, he felt strangely at ease in his new surroundings. He loved Nevada for what she has wrought, for what she is, for that which she is destined to become.

CHAPTER II.

HIS WANDERINGS.

Vin was fifty years of age. He did not appear to be more than thirty-five. He believed that his present existence was but a continuation of many which had preceded it. In the full vigor of mature manhood, with well-knit muscles, he was a tireless walker, a clever boxer, a fine horseman. And although he was at peace with God, at peace with himself and with the world, an indefinable longing filled his breast. He had never loved. Still, it was there-Love, aching in his heart;a want which never had been satisfied, never could be satisfied until he should find her.

Born on a farm of Teutonic parentage in faraway Minnesota, Vin in due time had graduated from the University of his native State. He had journeyed far and dwelt in many lands. Passing down the valley of the Father of Waters, he crossed the stormy Atlantic. The gates of Hercules had opened to receive him. Rome had given to him of the treasures of her law and government. Greece had bestowed upon him the riches of her literature and philosophy. Palestine had surrendered to him him the esoteric mysteries of her theology. He traversed the Nile to its source, and dreamed away the return in a house-boat. He stood in the shadows of the Pyramids. All along the blue Mediterranean sea, Vin saw the indelible imprints of man's past, the

glorious monuments of antiquity. He visited the site of ancient Babylon, beheld the winding sheet of her material greatness, and heard the jackal howl amid the ruins of one of the most magnificent cities of the ancient world. He sat at the feet of the Indian sages, and learned anew the doctrines of the continuity, the everlastingness of Life, the Immortality of the Individual Soul. Among the first to carry the ensign of the Republic into the wilds of the Orient, he had followed the indomitable Chaffee to the relief of the legations at Pekin. He had absorbed somewhat of the learning of every land, but whenever he thought of making a permanent abode, Vin heard an inexorable voice saying unto him, "Arise, get thee hence, this is not the place of thy habitation." And so, after twenty years of travel, of study, of active experience, of reflection, Vin came to Nevada. And as he watched the sunset hues fade from the tops of the tallest peaks, he thought that a State which had been so lavish in her bounty to the whole world might also be generous to him; that, at last, he had found the place to make a home.

CHAPTER III.

WHAT HE THOUGHT.

Vin watched the silvery moon rise above Mount Davidson and listened to that voice which Socrates has taught us to use rightly. His heart vibrated to its ring. He discerned between the voluntary action of his mind, and the involuntary perceptions of his Soul. He had learned to watch for and to trust that gleam of Light which flashes across the Mind from within, and to act upon those involuntary perceptions, knowing that they are true, that they emanate from the Eternal; that, like day and night, they are neither to be disputed nor gainsaid. The Truth which thus came to him would, he thought, come to all men whose Minds are open to the Infinite. "To believe your own thought, to believe that what is true for you in your private heart, is true for all men, that is genius." The chief merit in any book of genius seemed to him to consist in the fact that Books, Creeds, Dogmas, Theories and Traditions were set at naught, and that they portray not what the dead ages of superstition, but what their Author thought.

Trained in the Roman Catholic Church, it had taken him years of time, of thought, of study, of reflection, and many a hard-fought battle with himself, before Vin became satisfied of the utter fallacy of the so-called Christian Religion. He had passed through all the gradations from a