their faces eastward.




CHAPTER IV.

SMILES AND TEARS.


While riding through Nevada, Browning, after a long look from the car
window, said:

"By Jove, Jim, but is not this a desolate region? It is as though when
the rocky foundation had been laid, there was no more material to furnish
this part of the world with, and the work stopped."

"Yes, Jack," was Sedgwick's answer. "I knew an old man once. He was very
aged and most decrepit. His face was but a mass of wrinkles; his back was
bent; he always wore a frown on his face, and every relative he had
wished that he was dead. But his bank account was a mighty one; he had
given grand homes and plenty of money to each of his six children; he
still possessed a fortune so large that his neighbors could not estimate
it. I never look out upon the face of Nevada that I do not think of that
old man.

"The fairest structures in San Francisco were built of the treasures
taken from Nevada hills; clear across the continent, in every great city
are beautiful blocks which are but Nevada gold and silver converted into
stone and iron and glass; in every State are fair homes which were bought