, the frosts are early, and the sun strikes this valley
all day. It's going to be even more gorgeous in two weeks more. It isn't
exactly on my beat, but it's near enough so I can make it. Come on. I'll
show you all the different things."

So he led her from golden quaking-asp to crimson hawthorn, and taught her
the names of everything that grew in his wonderful garden. Before they had
made the circle, Vivian mustered courage, and, seeing the jeweled pin upon
the pocket of his rough shirt, which his coat had covered the evening
before, asked him about himself, and if Wyoming were his home.

No, he said, glad to tell her. He was from Maine, and the pin he wore was
his fraternity pin. He had studied forestry in the university there, and
then, becoming ill, had been sent West to get rid of a nasty cough which
didn't want to go away. But the mountains had proven the best doctors in
the world, and he was only staying on a year in the cabin at Cinnamon
Creek to learn the mountain trees, and to add a few more pounds before
going back home again.

Vivian grew more and more confused as she listened. Here he was a New
Englander like herself, and she had been so rude. What would Carver say
when he knew?

"It just shows," she said, "that we never can tell about persons on first
acquaintance. I'm doubly sorry I was rude last night. I thought you didn't
talk like a Westerner, but I didn't dream you were from New England!"

He smiled.

"I've learned since I've been out here," he said, "that it doesn't make
any difference where we're from. Wyoming hearts are just like New England
ones, and the only safe way is never to be rude or unkind at all."

Vivian agreed with him. She never would be again, she said to herself, as
they left the garden and went back down the trail to Siwash and the ford.
Carver was not there, and the ranger insisted upon walking home with her.
He would not have stayed for supper had not Virginia and Aunt Nan, meeting
them at the mail-box, persuaded him.

So it was a very merry party that ate supper beneath the cottonwoods--a
party saddened only by the early good-night of the Cinnamon Creek ranger,
who wanted to make his mountain cabin before darkness quite obliterated
the trail. As he swung into the main road after some cordial handshakes
which warmed his heart, he met Carver Standish III.

It was too nearly dark for Carver to see the fraternity pin, and no one
had yet told him that the ranger was from New