Didn't the Roman emperors claim to have the Imperial purple in their veins?
Still, out here, when we speak of a man appreciatively we say his blood is--red." "And that's the color of packer Weston's." A faint gleam crept into Ida's eyes as she remembered the white-faced man who had limped out of camp one morning almost too weary to drag himself along.
"Well," she said, "I think you ought to know.

When he went back up the range for you he left a trail of it behind him." Her companion had no opportunity for answering, for Major Kinnaird came back from the smoking end of the car just then, and when he spoke to Ida his daughter took up a book she had laid down.
In the meanwhile, a mountain locomotive and a train of flat cars came clanking into the station where Weston waited.

Swinging himself onto one he took his place among the men who sat on the rails with which the car was loaded.

Then, as the big locomotive slowly pulled them out, some of his new companions vituperated the station-agent for stopping them, and one came near braining him with a deftly-flung bottle when he retaliated.

There were a good many more men perched on the other cars, and Weston concluded, from the burst of hoarse laughter that reached him through the roar of wheels, that all of them were not wholly sober.