Wyoming, to be appreciated, should be explored on horseback and not viewed from the observation platform of a limited train. Barren stretches of sagebrush and cactus, and grim, ugly buttes guard too well the secret that golden wheat-fields lie beyond them; the rugged, far-away mountains never tell that their canyon-cut sides are clothed with timber and carpeted with a thousand flowers; and tired, dusty travelers, quite unaware of these things, find themselves actually longing for Nebraska to break the monotony!

The half-dozen weary persons who on the afternoon of September 6th sat on the observation platform of the Puget Sound Limited, together with the scores who peered from its windows in vain search of something besides sagebrush, were no exception to the rule. To a man, they were all giving fervent 287 thanks that Fate had cast their lots in California or New England or, at the worst, Iowa. The assurances of the brakeman, who was loquacious beyond his kind, that once past Elk Creek they would strike a better country brought some much-needed cheerfulness; and Elk Creek itself afforded such amusement and entertainment that they really began to have a better impression of Wyoming. Apparently, there were civilized persons even in so desolate an environment as this!

The sources of their entertainment, for they were several, stood on the little station platform at Elk Creek. The central figure was a tall, middle-aged man, whose hands were filled with trunk checks and tickets, and to whom three very excited girls were saying good-by all at the same time. Three boys, two in khaki and one in traveling clothes, were shaking hands heartily; a fresh-faced young woman with marigolds at her waist stood a little apart from the others and talked earnestly with a tall young man; and a hatless, brown-haired girl in a riding suit seemed to be everywhere at once.

“Oh, I can’t bear to think it’s all over!” the 288 interested travelers heard her say, as she embraced the three girls in turn. “It’s been absolutely the most perfect six weeks I’ve ever, ever known. Don’t lose your quirt, Vivian! And don’t leave Allan’s knife around, Mary. It isn’t fair to tempt even a porter. You’ll write from every large place, won’t you, Priscilla?”

In spite of an amused and impatient conductor, the last-named girl turned back for a last hug. Her hat was askew, her brown hair disheveled, and her brown eyes full of tears, which were coursing freely down her cheeks.

“Oh, Virginia,” she cried, “you’re the biggest peach I ever knew! Remember, you’re going to think of me every night at seven o’clock. It’ll be nine for me in Boston, but I’ll not forget. And it’s only three weeks before I see you again. That’s a comfort!”

She hurried toward the waiting train, at the steps of which a boy in khaki stood ready to help her.

“Good-by, Carver,” she cried, shaking hands for at least the fourth time. “I’m going to see your 289 grandfather the very first thing and tell him what a good sport you are!”

A mad rush for the observation platform ensued—the three girls, the boy, and the young woman reaching it just in time to wave good-by to those left behind. The brown-eyed girl swept the faces of her fellow travelers at one glance, nodded to the interested brakeman with a surprised and pleased smile, and then, just as the train began to move, hurried to the railing.

“Oh, Virginia!” she cried to the girl in the riding-suit. “What do you think! I’ve got the very same brakeman! Doesn’t that make the ending just perfect?”

Two hours later a boy and a girl on horseback forded Elk Creek, rode up the Valley, and to the summit of the highest foot-hill.

“I’m glad we rode up here,” said Virginia. “I’m missing them already, and to be up here with you helps a lot! Do you remember a year ago, Don? ’Twas in this very spot that we planned and planned, and the day was just like this, too—all clear and 290 golden. It just seems as though every year is lovelier than the last, and this one has been the very loveliest of all my life.”

“I guess,” said Donald thoughtfully, leaning forward in his saddle to pat MacDuff, “I guess it’s been the best of my life, too, counting this summer and all. Last year at school was great, with college always ahead—sort of a dream almost true, you know. And then to have Jack and Carver here, and all the girls with you, finished everything up just right. But the best part of the year to me, Virginia,” he finished hesitatingly, “was June when you came back, and I found you weren’t a young lady after all. I was some glad, I tell you!”

Virginia’s gray eyes looked at the mountains, swept the golden prairie stretches, and lingered for a long moment on the cottonwoods which bordered Elk Creek before they came back to Donald’s blue ones.

“I’m glad, too,” she said simply.

Pedro and MacDuff sniffed the September air and gloried in it. They were impatient for a wild run across the brow of the hills, and wondered why their 291 riders chose to look so long at the mountains on such an afternoon as this. If they sat so silently much longer, there would be no time to make the mesa, to gallop across its wide surface, and at last, perhaps, to have supper among the sagebrush with Robert Bruce. They felt somewhat encouraged when Virginia began to speak.

“I’ve been trying to decide the very loveliest thing of all the year,” she said. “I mean from September to June. I don’t know whether ’twas the Vigilantes or Miss Wallace or Grandmother Webster, but I’m almost sure ’twas Grandmother Webster learning to love Father. The others were joys for me, but that was one for all of us. Of course we know the loveliest thing of this summer. Everything’s been perfect, but Aunt Nan and Malcolm the most perfect of all. Yesterday, when Grandmother Webster’s letter came, I just cried for joy, it was so lovely!

“I—I couldn’t help comparing it with the one she wrote Mother about Father,” she continued, a little break in her voice. “I found it—afterward—in Mother’s things. She didn’t understand at all then. 292 I guess it takes some people a long time to understand things. But I’m going to try to forget that because Grandmother Webster knows now just how splendid Father is. Besides,” she finished thoughtfully, “it’s going to be very hard for Grandmother to give Aunt Nan up. I guess we can’t even imagine how hard it’s going to be.”

“Of course we can’t I think it’s fine of her to take it the way she does. What relation will that make you and me?” he finished practically.

“Priscilla and I figured it all out. You’re no relation at all—just my uncle’s brother. Makes you sound about forty-five, doesn’t it?”

“It doesn’t sound exactly young. When do you suppose it will happen?”

“Aunt Nan doesn’t know. Malcolm says Christmas, but she says no, she must have a year with Grandmother. So I think it will be in June—just after school is out. Webster is lovely then—all filled with daisies and buttercups and wild roses. And you’ll come on, Don—of course you will. And Priscilla will be there, and Mary and Vivian and Carver and Jack and maybe Dorothy! I want you 293 to see Dorothy. Oh, won’t it be the happiest time? I’m getting excited already!”

“The horses want to go,” said Donald. “I’ll race you to the edge of the mesa. Come on!”

Five minutes later they looked at each other, red-cheeked and radiant.

“In together, just as usual,” cried Donald. “There’s never much difference!”

“My hair makes me think of Priscilla,” said Virginia, brushing back some loose locks and re-tying her ribbon. “Wasn’t she funny this afternoon when she said good-by, her hat on one side and her hair all falling down, and her eyes full of tears? I can’t help saying all over and over how lovely it’s been. And now another year’s beginning, and in two weeks more you and I will go away to school again. I’m wondering,” she finished thoughtfully, “I’m wondering if next June, when we ride up here, you’ll say that I’m not a young lady after all.”

“You don’t feel you’re going to be—too grown-up, do you?” There was anxiety in Donald’s tone.

“No, not in the way you mean,” Virginia 294 promised him. “Not ever like Imogene or Katrina Van Rensaelar. But I am growing up! I feel it coming! It’s just as though I’d met my older self and shaken hands with her before she went away again, for, you see, she hasn’t come to stay for keeps yet. I think she came the first time when Jim went away, and then again at Easter time when Miss King talked to us at Vespers, and then this summer when Aunt Nan told me about Malcolm. That time she stayed longest of all.”

“I hope she won’t be a lot different from you,” said Donald. “I shouldn’t want to have to get acquainted all over again.”

“You won’t,” Virginia assured him. “Only she knows a lot more than I know, and she’s told me a great many things already. That night on the mountain she came and stayed with me while Vivian and Carver were asleep. I learned so many things that night, Don. I’m just sure she taught them to me—she and the night and the stillness.” Her voice softened. “Somehow, away up there on the mountain, life seemed such a big, wonderful thing—all full of dreams and opportunities and surprises 295 and—and comrades, all going along the same trail. Don’t you like to think of life as a trail—like the kind that leads to Lone Mountain, I mean—all full of dangers and surprises and beautiful things?”

“Yes,” he said simply. His eyes as he watched her filled with pride in their comradeship—his and hers.

“And, oh, that makes me think!” she cried excitedly. “I’ve forgotten to tell you about the poem Miss Wallace sent me yesterday. You see, I’m collecting lovely ones, and she’s such a help in sending them to me. I learned this one to say to you. Of course she didn’t know, but it’s just like we were the Christmas before I went away to school when you were home for the holidays. Don’t you remember how we went for Christmas greens up Bear Canyon in that big snow-storm and didn’t get home until long after dark, and how Jim and William were just starting to hunt for us? Listen! I know you’ll like it. It’s called ‘Comrades.’

“Don’t you like it, Don?” she finished eagerly. “I do. I like it because I think it shows the finest kind of friendship—the kind that makes you free to do just what seems right and best to you, and yet makes you glad of your friends. Miss Wallace calls it the friendship which doesn’t demand, and it’s her ideal, too. I’m sure she was thinking of that when she sent me the poem. And then I like it most 297 of all because it makes me think of that Christmas, and the good time we had. Don’t you like it?” she repeated.

In her eagerness she was all unconscious that she had given him no time to reply.

“Yes,” he said. “I should say I do like it. I guess I’ll copy it, if you don’t mind. And, Virginia,” he added, hesitating, “you don’t know what our comradeship means to me. You see, when a fellow goes away to college the way I’m going, it helps him to be—to be on the square in everything, if he has a comrade like—like you’ve always been.”

But there was no hesitation—only gladness in Virginia’s frank gray eyes as she looked at him.

“Oh, I’m so glad!” she cried, her face flooded with happiness. “That’s the very kind of a comrade I want to be, Don! I like to feel just as it says in the poem:

THE END