n the dry year. I was glad to come back to it. I've lived here
a long time. There is great peace here, Carl, and freedom....
I thought when I came out of that prison, where poor Frank is,
that I should never feel free again. But I do, here." Alexandra
took a deep breath and looked off into the red west.

"You belong to the land," Carl murmured, "as you have always said.
Now more than ever."

"Yes, now more than ever. You remember what you once said about
the graveyard, and the old story writing itself over? Only it is
we who write it, with the best we have."

They paused on the last ridge of the pasture, overlooking the
house and the windmill and the stables that marked the site of John
Bergson's homestead. On every side the brown waves of the earth
rolled away to meet the sky.

"Lou and Oscar can't see those things," said Alexandra suddenly.
"Suppose I do will my land to their children, what difference will
that make? The land belongs to the future, Carl; that's the way
it seems to me. How many of the names on the county clerk's plat
will be there in fifty years? I might as well try to will the
sunset over there to my brother's children. We come and go, but
the land is always here. And the people who love it and understand
it are the people who own it--for a little while."

Carl looked at her wonderingly. She was still gazing into the west,
and in her face there was that exalted serenity that sometimes came
to her at moments of deep feeling. The level rays of the sinking
sun shone in her clear eyes.

"Why are you thinking of such things now, Alexandra?"

"I had a dream before I went to Lincoln--But I will tell you about
that afterward, after we are married. It will never come true,
now, in the way I thought it might." She took Carl's arm and they
walked toward the gate. "How many times we have walked this path
together, Carl. How many times we will walk it again! Does it seem
to you like coming back to your own place? Do you feel at peace
with the world here? I think we shall be very happy. I haven't
any fears. I think when friends marry, they are safe. We don't
suffer like--those young ones." Alexandra ended with a sigh.

They had reached the gate. Before Carl opened it, he drew Alexandra
to him and kissed her softly, on her lips and on her eyes.

She leaned heavily on his shoulder. "I am tired," she murmured.
"I have been very lonely, Carl."

They went into the house together, leaving the Divide behind t