"I hope so, Father."
"With a wise friend at your elbow it will be your own fault if you
do not," his father declared.
Summoning a porter to carry the luggage the trio followed him to the
train which was to take them to the small town outside of Denver,
where the Blakes resided.
Here they found Van's mother--very beautiful and very young, it
seemed to Bob; a woman of soft voice and pretty southern manner who
seemed always to appear in a different gown and many floating scarfs
and ribbons. Bob felt at a glance that she would not be the sort of
person to pack boxes of goodies and send to her boy; she would
always be too busy to do that. That she was, nevertheless, genuinely
fond of Van there could be not the smallest doubt, and she welcomed
both boys to the great stone house with true Virginian hospitality.
To describe that western sojourn would be a book in itself.
Bob wrote home to his parents volumes about his good times, and
still left half the wonders of his Colorado visit untold. There was
the trip up Pike's Peak; a two days' jaunt to a gold mine; a
horseback ride to a large beet farm in an adjoining town; three
weeks of real mountain camping, the joy of which was enhanced by the
capture of a good sized bear. In addition to all this there were
several fishing trips, and toward the close of the holiday a tour to
the Grand Canyon.
It was a never-to-be-forgotten vacation crowded with experiences
novel and delightful.
"I wonder, Van, how you can ever be content to leave all this behind
and come East to school," remarked Bob to his chum when toward the
last of September they once more boarded the train and turned their
faces toward Colversham.
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