volunteer service. Watching Marjie coming
down the street one spring morning Cam declared solemnly:

"The War's done decided, an' the Union has won. A land that can grow
girls like Marjory Whately's got the favorin' smile of the Almighty upon
it."

For us that season all the world was gay and all the skies were
opal-hued, and we almost forgot sometimes that there could be sorrow and
darkness and danger. Most of all we forgot about an alien down in the
Hermit's Cave, "a good Indian" turned bad in one brief hour. Dear are
the memories of that springtide. Many a glorious April have I seen in
this land of sunshine, but none has ever seemed quite like that one to
me. Nor waving yellow wheat, nor purple alfalfa bloom, nor ramparts of
dark green corn on well-tilled land can hold for me one-half the beauty
of the windswept springtime prairie. No sweet odor of new-ploughed
ground can rival the fragrance of the wild grasses in their waving seas
of verdure.

We were coming home from Red Range late one April day, where we had gone
to a last-day-of-school affair. The boys and girls did not ride in a
group now, but broke up into twos and twos sauntering slowly homeward.
The tender pink and green of the landscape with the April sunset tinting
in the sky overhead, and all the far south and west stretching away into
limitless waves of misty green blending into the amethyst of the world's
far bound, gave setting for young hearts beating in tune with the year's
young beauty.

Tell Mapleson and Lettie had been with Marjie and me for a time, but at
last Tell had led Lettie far away. When we reached the draw beyond the
big cottonwood where Jean Pahusca threw us into such disorder on that
August evening the year before, we found a rank profusion of spring
blossoms. Leading our ponies by the bridle rein we lingered long in the
fragrant draw, gathering flowers and playing like two children among
them. At length Marjie sat down on the sloping ground and deftly wove
into a wreath the little pink blooms of some frail wild flower.

"Come, Phil," she cried, "come, crown me Queen of May here in April!"

I was as tall then as I am now, and Marjie at her full height came only
to my shoulder. I stooped to lay that dainty string of blossoms above
her brow. They fell into place in her wavy hair and nestled there,
making a picture only memory can keep. The air was very sweet and the
whole prairie about the little draw was still and dewy. The purple