MORNING WORK. 53 
small stream, some distance from any frequented 
route. 
The creek was bordered, as such streams in 
Colorado usually are, by a growth of low bushes, 
but between them and the high ground lay a strip 
of valuable meadow land. 
White people had endeavored a number of 
times to occupy it long enough to cut and secure 
the grass, but had been driven away by the In- 
dians and their work destroyed. 
A few rods back from the creek stood the re- 
mains of an old adobe fort, formerly used as a 
government defence, but long since rendered — by 
the noble red men (?) — useless for such a pur- 
pose. Mr. and Mrs. Maxwell made their camp 
upon the creek below and just out of sight of it. 
With the coming of the dawn Mrs. Maxwell, 
as usual, was out with her gun. There was no 
dew on the low, gray-green grass that clothes the 
foot-hills. The air was cool and bracing, and 
the silence was broken only by the far-off waking 
song of the meadow lark, or the occasional twitter 
of some nearer bird. 
Slowly the rocky heights beyond her grew 
rosy, then suddenly flashed back the sunlight as 
its first beams touched them. How sternly grand 
they looked in that all-revealing sunlight ! their 
shadows dispelled, not a film of mist, not even a 
slender, blue curl of smoke from a prospecters 
