A magic hand had transformed the interior of that rude old prospector's abode.

A carpenter and a mason and a decorator had been wonderfully at work.

From one end to the other Columbine gazed; from the big window under which Wilson lay on a blanketed couch to the open fireplace where Wade grinned she looked and looked, and then up to the clean, aspen-poled roof and down to the floor, carpeted with deer hides.

The chinks between the logs of the walls were plastered with red clay; the dust and dirt were gone; the place smelled like sage and wood-smoke and fragrant, frying meat.
Indeed, there were a glowing bed of embers and a steaming kettle and a smoking pot; and the way the smoke and steam curled up into the gray old chimney attested to its splendid draught.

In each corner hung a deer-head, from the antlers of which depended accoutrements of a cowboy--spurs, ropes, belts, scarfs, guns.