Carson forgot
their religious differences in the good fellowship of the time, and when
the inner circle had kissed Belle and manhandled Jim to the limit of
custom, a quiet voice said: "Welcome back, Mr. Hartigan," and Charlie
Bylow grasped the Preacher's hand. "I brought my team so I could take
care of your trunks." There was only one small trunk, but he took the
check and would have resented any other man having hand or say in the
matter.

That evening the meal was a "welcome home," for a dozen of the nearer
friends were there to hear the chapters of their hero's life. Jim was in
fine feather and he told of their Chicago life as none other could have
done, with jest and sly digs at himself and happy tributes to the one
who had held his hand when comradeship meant the most.

A month of freedom, with youth, sounds like years. Many plans were
offered to fill the time. An invitation came from Colonel and Mrs.
Waller to spend three days at Fort Ryan. In a delicately worded
postscript was the sentence: "Blazing Star is well and will be glad to
feel your weight again."

"Blazing Star and Cedar Mountain!" shouted Jim as Belle read the letter
the next morning at breakfast. And then, much to Pa Boyd's amusement he
broke out in his lusty baritone:

"'Tis my ain countree,
'Tis my ain countree!'
The fairest brightest land
That the sun did ever see."

Midnight and the horse that had been Belle's were waiting in the stable.

"Now, where shall we go? Up Cedar Mountain, to Fort Ryan, or where?"
asked Belle as they saddled their mounts. His answer was not what she
expected. Cedar Mountain had ever been in his thought. "If only I could
stand on Cedar Mountain!" had been his words so many times. And now,
with Cedar Mountain close at hand, in sight, he said: "Let's ride
nowhere in particular--just through the sage."

They set off and veered away from Fort Ryan and any other place where
men might cross their path. The prairie larks sang about them their
lovely autumn song--the short, sweet call that sounds like: "_Hear me,
hear me! I am the herald announcing the King._" Fluttering in the air
and floating for a moment above the riders they carolled a wild and
glorious serenade that has no possible rendition into human notation.
After a hard gallop they rode in silence side by side, hand in hand,
while Jim gazed across the plain or watched the fat, fumbling prairie
dogs. But ever he turned his face and heart away fr