A September afternoon in the Big Horn mountains! The air crystal clear; the sky cloudless; the outlines of the hills distinct! Elk Creek Valley lay golden in the sunshine, silent save for the incessant hum of locust and cricket, the hurrying of the creek waters, and the occasional bellowing of steers on the range beyond the foot-hills; deserted except for the distant cattle, a coyote stealing across the hills, a pheasant scurrying through the buck-brush by the creek, and some cotton-tail rabbits and prairie dogs, who, sure of safety, meant to enjoy the sunshine while they might.

The foot-hills more than half-encircled the Valley. North, east, and south they tumbled, their brown, closely-cropped sides glowing here and there with the yellow of the quaking-asps, the red of hawthorn, and the bronze of service-berry. Above them rose the higher ranges, clothed in gray-green sagebrush and scant timber, and cut by canyon-forming mountain storms, invisible from the Valley; and far above all, seemingly near, but in reality miles away, the mountains extended their blue, snow-furrowed summits toward a bluer sky. Peak above peak they rose—some isolated and alone, others leaning upon the shoulders of the higher—all silent, majestic, mysterious, as though they held in their great hearts the secrets of the world—secrets of which Elk Creek Valley could never know. Yet the Valley looked very happy and content. Perhaps it had lain so long beneath their protection that it knew no fear.

The creek, rushing madly from the northern foothills, and fed by melting snow from the higher mountains, had cut a canyon for itself in its tumultuous journey from the hills; but as the land became more level, it slackened its pace, content to make but a slight depression through the Valley. Across it toward the west, beyond a great gap in the foothills, stretched an open plateau, which rose in undulations, and extended as far as one could see toward other far distant mountains, on less clear days dim and hazy of outline, to-day almost as blue and distinct as the nearer ranges, though sixty miles away. This great sea of open prairie rolling westward was cut in as many pieces and bore as many colors as a patchwork quilt. Golden wheat-fields, the wheat shocked and piled in wigwams on the plain, met acres of black, freshly-plowed soil, which, in turn, bordered upon the tender green of alfalfa and of newly grown winter grain. Scattered over the prairie stretches, at intervals of a mile, perhaps of several, were homes—here, large ranch houses with out-lying buildings—there, the rough shack of a lone homesteader.

Yes, it was a golden land—smiling and peaceful in the September sunshine. Save for horses and cattle dotted here and there, the prairie seemed almost as deserted as Elk Creek Valley, though its homes promised inhabitants, and a blue line of distant smoke showed where the threshers were at work. Moreover, on the barely visible brown road that threaded its way across the prairie, two specks were moving rapidly in the direction of the Gap. The specks took form, became two riders, a boy and a girl, on wildly galloping horses, which, neck to neck, tore at last through the Gap, forded the creek in a mad splash of water, stirrup-high, and dashed away up the Valley. Reaching the foot-hills a trifle in advance of his companion, the boy pulled in his restive horse, and called over his shoulder to the girl just behind.

“Are Pedro’s feet all right, Virginia?”

“Yes, Don. Jim fixed them yesterday.”

“Let’s take the Mine then, shall we?”

“Yes, let’s!”

And away they went, allowing the sure-footed horses to have their way up one of the foot-hills, called the “Mine,” because some lone prospector, dreaming of a fortune, had dug from its side some poor coal; and then, perhaps discouraged, had abandoned the fruit of his labors, leaving the black heap as a monument to his zeal, and a testimony to the vanity of mere dreams.

They reached the hill-top almost at the same instant, their good steeds panting; they quite undisturbed, and, turning their horses’ heads, drew rein and looked across the Valley. They were a robust-looking pair, red-cheeked and khaki-clad, and as good riders as Wyoming could produce. The boy was seventeen, or thereabouts, well-knit and tall for his years, with dark, heavy hair and clear, blue eyes that looked bluer through his coat of tan. His features were cleanly-cut and strong, and his mouth had a laugh in the corners. A merry, honest, manly-looking lad—Donald Keith by name, and the son of a ranchman on the other side of the Valley.

She—Virginia Hunter—was a year younger, and for sixteen as tall and strong as he for seventeen. She was not pretty, but there was something singularly attractive about her clear, fresh skin, brown now, except for the red of her cheeks, her even white teeth, and her earnest gray eyes, at times merry, but often thoughtful, which looked so straight at you from under brows and lashes of black. Her golden-brown hair curled about her temples, but it was brushed back quite simply and braided down her back where it was well out of her way. A person riding could not bother about her hair. She sat her horse as though he were a part of her, holding her reins loosely in her brown left hand, her right hanging idly at her side. The wind blew back the loosened hair about her face, and the ends of the red handkerchief, knotted cow-boy fashion, under the collar of her khaki shirt. She, like the boy, seemed a part of the country—free, natural, wholesome—and she shared its charm.

They had been comrades for years—these two—for, in the ranch country, homes are often widely separated, and the frequent society of many persons rare. Virginia’s home lay up the Valley, beyond the first range of the foot-hills, while the Keith ranch was situated on the prairie, west beyond the Gap. Three miles apart across country, four by the road; but three or four miles in Wyoming are like so many squares in Boston, and the Keiths and Hunters considered themselves near neighbors. This afternoon Virginia had ridden over to say good-by to all the dear Keiths—Mr. David, Mother Mary, Donald’s older brother Malcolm, and his younger, Kenneth, the farm-hands busy with the threshing, and the men in from the range to help with the wheat; for they were all her friends, and now that she was going so far away to school, they seemed nearer and dearer—indeed, next to her father and those upon their own ranch, the dearest of her world.

They had been quite as sad as she to say good-by. “The country won’t be the same without you, my lass,” Mr. David had said in his genial Scotch way; and Donald’s mother, whom Virginia had called “Mother Mary,” since the death of her own dear mother six years ago, had kissed her quite as though she were her own daughter. Even Malcolm had come in from the wheat field to shake her by the hand and wish her good luck, and little Kenneth’s feelings had been quite wounded because Virginia felt she must decline to carry one of his pet foxes away with her to boarding-school. Then Donald’s father had granted the request in the boy’s eyes that he might be excused from threshing to ride up the Valley and home with Virginia. So now their horses, good friends, too, stood side by side on the brow of the Mine, while their riders looked down the Valley, beyond the cottonwood-bordered creek, and across the wide, rolling prairie to the far away mountains; and then, turning in their saddles, to those ranges and peaks towering above them.

Virginia drew a long breath.

“We’re like Moses on Mount Nebo, looking away into the Promised Land, aren’t we, Don?” Then, as he laughed, “Do you suppose there’s any country so lovely as ours? Is there anything in the East like this? Do you think I’ll be homesick, Don?”

He laughed again, used to her questions.

“I suppose every fellow thinks his own State is the best, Virginia, but I don’t believe there can be any lovelier than this. You know I told you about spending a vacation when I was at school last year with Jack Williams in the Berkshires. Some of those hills aren’t higher than the Mine, you know, and he called them mountains. It seemed like a mighty small country to me, but he thought there was no place like it. I wish he could get this sweep of country from here. No, the East isn’t like this,—not a bit—and maybe you won’t like it, but you’re too plucky to be homesick, Virginia.”

Little did Virginia realize how often those words would ring in her ears through the months that were to follow. She drew another long breath—almost a sigh this time.

“Oh, I wish you were going East again, Don, instead of to Colorado! ’Twould be such fun traveling together, and you could tell me all about the states as we went through them. But, instead, I’m going all alone, and Aunt Louise has warned me a dozen times about talking to strangers. Four days without talking, Don! I shall die! Is it very bad taste to talk to good, oldish-looking people, do you think?”

“I think your aunt’s mighty particular, if you ask me,” the boy said bluntly. “You’ll have to talk to some one, Virginia. You’ll never last four days without it, and I don’t think it’s any harm. But, you see, your aunt’s from the East, and they’re not so sociable as we are out here. I thought she was going East with you.”

“No, she decided not to, and went to Los Angeles this morning; but I’m bursting with watch-words that she left. All the way to your house I said them over, and I nearly ran Pedro into a prairie dog’s hole, I was thinking so hard. I. It is very bad form to talk to strangers. II. Try to be as neat in appearance on the train as you are at home. (Aunt Lou really means neater, Don.) III. Don’t forget to tip the waiter after each meal in the dining-car. IV. Be polite to your traveling companions, but not familiar. That’s all for the journey, but I’ve heaps more for Vermont and for school. Oh, why did you choose Colorado, Don?”

“Oh, I don’t know, except that it’s nearer home, and since I’m going there to college in another year, I may as well get used to it. The East is all right, Virginia, but some way I like it out here better. I’m a rank cow-boy, I guess. That’s what they used to call me at school. Then, besides, the Colorado fellows ride a lot, and they don’t in the East—that is, so much, you know,” he added hastily, as he saw the dismay on her face.

“Don’t ride, Don! Why, I can’t stand it not to ride! Don’t they have horses? Don’t they—know how to ride?”

Her genuine distress disturbed him, and he hastened to reassure her as best he could.

“You’ll find something to ride, I’m sure,” he said. “Don’t worry. Maybe the horses won’t be like Pedro, but they’ll do. You see, your school’s in a larger town than mine. You’ll write me all about it, won’t you, Virginia?”

“Of course, I will—every little thing. If the boys thought you were a cow-boy, the girls will probably think I’m very queer, too.”

“Oh, no, they won’t! You’re—you’re different some way. And, anyway, they won’t be as nice as you,” he finished awkwardly.

Virginia, full of questions, did not heed the honest compliment.

“What are Eastern girls like, Don? Have you seen many? You see, I’ve never known one, except in books. Margaret Montfort certainly was different. Besides, you know what a time Peggy had when she went East to school, and she was only from Ohio.”

Donald knew nothing of Margaret or Peggy, and felt incompetent to remark upon them; but he answered Virginia’s questions.

“I used to see them last year at school,” he said, “at the dances and at Commencement. And in the Berkshires, I knew Jack’s sister, Mary. She’s great, Virginia. I hope there are some like her. She’s at some school, but I forget where. Oh, I guess they’re nice. You see, at parties, when they’re all dressed up, you can’t get real well-acquainted.”

“Dressed up!” cried Virginia. “Don, you ought to see the clothes I’ve got! And trunks like closets?—two of them! Aunt Lou bought my things in Chicago for father. He told her to get what I’d need, and when all the boxes came, he grew more and more surprised. He thought they had sent a lot for us to choose from; and when Aunt Lou told him it was only my ‘necessary wardrobe,’ he just sat down and laughed. Then I had to try them all on—six pairs of shoes, and sailor-suits, and coats and sweaters and dinner dresses, and goodness knows what all! It took the whole afternoon. That was the one last week, you know, when I didn’t get to go hunting prairie chickens with you. And Aunt Lou made me walk back and forth in the dinner dresses until I could ‘act natural,’ she said.” She paused laughing, and the boy looked at her, his face troubled.

“I hope all those things and going away off there won’t make you different, Virginia,” he said, a little wistfully.

“Of course, they won’t!” she told him. “I couldn’t be any different, Don. If it weren’t for the fun of wondering about things, I’d never want to go even a little, but it will be new and interesting. Besides, you know Aunt Lou says it’s ‘imperative’ that I go. I heard her say that to father one night this summer. ‘It’s imperative that Virginia go,’ she said. ‘She’s getting really wild out here with just you men, and that woman in the kitchen.’ ‘That woman’ means old Hannah, who’s been so good to us ever since mother died!”

Donald looked angry for a moment. Apparently he did not care a great deal for Virginia’s Aunt Louise.

“What did your father say?”

“He didn’t say anything, like he doesn’t when he’s thinking or troubled; but, next morning, he told me he was going to send me East to mother’s old school. He said he guessed I needed to see different things. Aunt Lou was there when he told me, and she said, ‘It will be the making of you, Virginia,—a very broadening experience!’”

“I don’t think I’d like your aunt very well,” Donald announced bluntly.

Virginia was not surprised. “No, I’m sure you wouldn’t, and I don’t think she’d like you either. That is, she ought to like you, and maybe she would, but she probably wouldn’t approve. She’s a person that doesn’t often approve of things. She doesn’t approve of my shooting, or of Jim teaching me to lasso the steers in the corral; and that afternoon when I wanted to go rabbit hunting with you instead of trying on dresses, I heard her tell father that I was getting to be rather too much of a young lady to ride the country over with you. But father laughed and laughed, and said he’d as soon have me with you as with himself.”

Donald looked pleased. Then—

“I hope you won’t get to be too much of a young lady while you’re gone, Virginia,” he said, “so you won’t care for hunting and—and things like that, next summer.”

“Don’t worry,” she said. “I won’t be a young lady for years. I hate to even think of it! But we must go down, Don. The sun says five o’clock, and it’s my last evening with father.”

Her gray eyes, thoughtful and almost sad, swept the country before her.

“I hate to leave you all,” she said softly, a little catch in her voice. “The valley and the creek and the cottonwoods and the prairie—all of you. And, most of all, the foot-hills. You know, Don,” she continued, turning toward him, “I think I like the foot-hills best. They’re so sort of friendly, and they don’t make you feel little like the mountains. You know what I mean!”

He nodded with quick understanding. They turned their horses to look at the peaks towering above them.

“Sometimes they really scare me,” she said almost in a whisper. “They’re so big, and look as though they knew so many things. Sometimes I wish they’d talk, and then I know if they did, I’d run and hide, I’d be so frightened at what they were going to say.” Her eyes left the mountains and swept across the nearer hills. Suddenly she grasped his arm, all excitement. “Hst, Don!” she whispered, her eyes gleaming. “There! Behind that clump of pine on the range! Not a quarter of a mile away! Bess and the new colt! I know the way she holds her head. Wait a minute! There she is! She’s seen us, and there she goes!”

With a wild snort, which they could hear distinctly in the clear air, and a mad kick of the heels, the horse tore away across the range, her colt trying manfully with his long ungainly legs to keep near his mother. Months on the range had transformed Bess from a corral pet to a wild steed, suspicious even of her mistress, and mindful only of her safety and that of her colt.

“A nice colt,” said Don, “and now she’s down this far she won’t go far away. Doesn’t your father brand this week? They’ll probably mark the little fellow with the rest.”

“Yes, I suppose they will. That’s one thing I can’t bear to see—the branding. Father and Jim will be so glad to know about the colt. You can break it for me, Don, when it’s two years old.”

“All right, I’ll not forget,” he promised.

Then they turned again, and rode down the hill into the valley. This time they did not ford the creek, but turned north, following an old trail up the valley and through another gap in the hills a mile above. This brought them again to the open, where Virginia’s home lay—a long, rambling house with its back against the foot-hills and its front looking westward across the prairie. Tall cottonwoods shaded the brown road that led to it; and down this road, beneath the trees, they rode, more slowly now.

A tall man, reading on the broad front porch, rose as they drew rein under the cottonwoods.

“Come in to supper, Don,” he called cordially. “It’s all ready, and we’re glad to have you.”

“Thank you, Mr. Hunter, but I can’t. I’ve got to be making for home. Good-by, Virginia,” he said, jumping from his horse to shake hands with her, as she stood beside her father. “I’m going to be lonesome without you. Don’t forget us, will you?”

“Good-by, Don.” She had the same little catch in her voice as upon the hills, and her eyes were grave again. “I’ll miss you, and, of course, I won’t forget. And, Don,” she called, as he swung himself into his saddle and galloped away, “remember, I’ll not be a young lady when I come back!”