ACT I.


SCENE. _The scene is that of the summer country ranch house of_ MRS.
WILLIAMS, _a friend of_ LAURA MURDOCK'S, _and a prominent society
woman of Denver, perched on the side of Ute Pass, near Colorado
Springs. The house is one of unusual pretentiousness, and, to a person
not conversant with conditions as they exist in this part of Colorado,
the idea might be that such magnificence could not obtain in such
a locality. At the left of stage the house rises in the form of a
turret, built of rough stone of a brown hue, two stories high, and
projecting a quarter of the way out on the stage. The door leads to a
small elliptical terrace built of stone, with heavy benches of Greek
design, strewn cushions, while over the top of one part of this
terrace is suspended a canopy made from a Navajo blanket. The terrace
is supposed to extend almost to the right of stage, and here it stops.
The stage must be cut here so that the entrance of_ JOHN _can give the
illusion that he is coming up a steep declivity or a long flight of
stairs. There are chairs at right and left, and a small table at left.
There are trailing vines around the balustrade of the terrace, and
the whole setting must convey the idea of quiet wealth. Up stage is
supposed to be the part of the terrace overlooking the cañon, a sheer
drop of two thousand feet, while over in the distance, as if across
the cañon, one can see the rolling foot-hills and lofty peaks of the
Rockies, with Pike's Peak in the distance, snow-capped and colossal.
It is late in the afternoon, and, as the scene progresses, the quick
twilight of a cañon, beautiful in its tints of purple and amber,
becomes later pitch black, and the curtain goes down on an absolutely
black stage. The cyclorama, or semi-cyclorama, must give the