“Pedro,” said Virginia, “do you realize for one little minute what’s happened?”

Pedro looked back and whinnied. He realized at least that something was agitating his mistress. But half an hour since she had run out of the house to where he was feeding beneath the cottonwoods, and hurried him to the corral where she had saddled and bridled him herself. She had been crying then. Quick little sobs were shaking her shoulders. Then she had sprung upon his back and ridden like mad across the prairie to Elk Creek Valley. Had MacDuff been along, he would not have minded; but it was too warm at mid-day to gallop all alone. Once during that wild ride she had laughed, and once she had leaned forward and put her arms around his neck. It was all a very strange proceeding. Now she had mercifully halted 199 him on the brow of the mesa, and was allowing him to rest and feed while she sat in silence and looked across the sagebrush stretches to the mountains.

A long silence. The air throbbed with a hidden insect chorus. Little waves of heat shimmered above the mesa. Jean MacDonald’s three cows, searching for better feeding-grounds, passed by and gazed with grave, inquisitive eyes at Pedro and Virginia. Pedro fed on where he was. At last the girl upon his back spoke again.

“Pedro,” she began, and again Pedro raised his head, “Pedro, I’ve decided that Life isn’t such a strange thing after all! I’ve always thought it was until to-day, but I guess it isn’t. I guess it just means loving people—and things! If you love the wrong kind of people and the things that don’t count, why, then—why, then Life’s a sad, gray thing. But if you love the right kind of people, the kind who’ve learned that a primrose isn’t just a primrose, and things like the mountain and the mesa and you, Pedro—why, then, Life’s a golden thing like to-day. And it’s the loving that makes all the 200 difference. I discovered that this morning when Aunt Nan told me about Malcolm. When I was in Vermont I thought that Grandmother and Aunt Nan were about the happiest people I’d seen; but this morning, when I saw the light in Aunt Nan’s eyes, I understood. I guess it’s a home that makes all the difference, Pedro—a home you and somebody else make together!”

Pedro fed on, glad to be talked to, confident that his mistress’ world had righted itself again. A passing cloud obscured the sun for a brief moment.

“That’s the way it was with me this morning,” confided Virginia. “For just an instant I felt sorry. ’Twas the selfish part of me coming out. I didn’t want any one to take a bigger piece of Aunt Nan’s heart than mine. I didn’t want to move over and make room for any one else—even Malcolm. But that mean, drab feeling lasted only a moment. It went right away, and now I’m glad, glad—glad! If Grandmother Webster’s only glad, too, there couldn’t be any greater happiness in the world, could there, Pedro?”

Pedro stopped feeding to look back at his 201 mistress, and to shake his head. Virginia laughed.

“You’re the only friend I want to-day, Pedro,” she said, her arms around his neck, “you and a big Something in my heart. I wanted to come away off up here alone with you. That’s why I hurried you so, poor dear! I wanted to hear the stillness all around, and to look at the mountains. I wanted to think about it, and to wonder if, some day, after I’ve learned more things, it will come to me, too!”

Impulsively she turned in her saddle and looked down the foot-hills. Some one was fording the creek. She knew it even before she heard the splash of water. As she watched, two riders left the ford, and turned north up the canyon trail. They were Malcolm and Aunt Nan. Virginia turned back toward the mountains, and sat very still.

“Pedro,” she said at last, her voice breaking, “I guess perhaps we’d better go home, don’t you? Aunt Nan and Malcolm have found their trail, you see. They don’t need us just now. No, I’m not sorry! I’m glad! I just know it’s the most wonderful thing in all the world!”