“It’s a dull place, they tell me, and there’s nothing to do there but ride on horseback, and as I don’t ride on horseback, I really don’t see what use there would be in my going,” she said to Clover.  “If I were young, and there were young men ready to ride with me all the time, it would be different; though Ellen never did care to, except with Henry of course, after they—­And I really can’t see that your brother’s much different from what he was, though if Dr. Hope says so, naturally you—­He’s a queer kind of doctor, it seems to me, to send lung patients up higher than this,—­which is high already, gracious knows.  No; if you decide to go, I shall just move over to the Shoshone for the rest of the time that I’m here.  I’m sure that Dr. Carr couldn’t expect me to stay on here alone, just for the chance that you may want to come back, when as like as not, Mrs. Marsh won’t be able to take you again.”

“Oh, no; I’m quite sure he wouldn’t.  Only I thought,” doubtfully, “that as you’ve always admired Phil’s room so much, you might like to secure it now that we have to go.”

“Well, yes.  If you were to be here, I might.  If that man who’s so sick had got better, or gone away, or something, I dare say I should have settled down in his room and been comfortable enough.  But he seems just about as he was when we came, so there’s no use waiting; and I’d rather go to the Shoshone anyway.  I always said it was a mistake that we didn’t go there in the first place.  It was Dr. Hope’s doing, and I have not the least confidence in him.  He hasn’t osculated me once since I came.”

“Hasn’t he?” said Clover, feeling her voice tremble, and perfectly aware of the shaking of Phil’s shoulders behind her.

“No; and I don’t call just putting his ear to my chest, listening.  Dr. Bangs, at home, would be ashamed to come to the house without his stethoscope.  I mean to move this afternoon.  I’ve given Mrs. Marsh notice.”

So Mrs. Watson and her belongings went to the Shoshone, and Clover packed the trunks with a lighter heart for her departure.

The last day of July found Clover and Phil settled in the Ute Park.  It was a wild and beautiful valley, some hundreds of feet higher than St. Helen’s, and seemed the very home of peace.  A Sunday-like quiet pervaded the place, whose stillness was never broken except by bird-songs and the rustle of the pine branches.

The sides of the valley near its opening were dotted here and there with huts and cabins belonging to parties who had fled from the heat of the plains for the summer.  At the upper end stood the ranch house,—­a large, rather rudely built structure,—­and about it were a number of cabins and cottages, in which two, four, or six people could be accommodated.  Clover and Phil were lodged in one of these.  The tiny structure contained only a sitting and two sleeping rooms, and was very plain and bare.  But there was a fireplace; wood was abundant, so that a cheerful blaze could be had for cool evenings; and the little piazza faced the south, and made a sheltered sitting place on windy days.