became a part of the Pike's Peak Forest Reserve, so that your father had
to refile on his claim and prove to the land office that he was working a
real mineral vein. In refiling, his claim was not big enough to include
the shanty, but anticipating no trouble on account of it he neglected to
lease his cabin from the Forest Reserve officials. The news leaked out
that gold had been discovered in Cookstove Gulch, and in a few days the
entire stream was staked from one end of the canyon to the other as
placer claims. Of course the cabin site became the property of another
man, and with it the cabin, as it could not be moved. The new owner was a
little, short, pudgy man with an ever-ready eye for business, so father
and Tad were forced to rent the cabin they had built and paid for. That
winter was the one your sister Mabel was taken from us, and the last year
we were all together."

She stopped and gazed into the fire, seemingly forgetting the boy who sat
by her side. Then she reached forward and placed the last stick on the
slowly-dying embers. As it caught, and the flames leaped into the chimney
in response to the wind outside, she continued:

"The next summer was the last. I never knew just how it happened exactly;
but some way, while making a new side drift in the tunnel, a blast went
off prematurely, and he was caught in the falling rocks and crushed to
death. Uncle Joe wrote me the particulars--all that I ever had.

"He was too badly mangled to be recognized, so even before I knew of the
accident his poor, broken body was laid to rest under the pines in
Evergreen Cemetery. The tunnel was closed and locked, and your uncle
packed father's few belongings in the little old trunk I gave you last
spring for your own and sent it home--all that I ever saw again of your
father.