e meadows, each one perfect in symmetry. It seemed
that the men who held this land cared for single trees. The sleek, tame
cattle that rubbed their necks on the level hedge-top and gazed at him
ruminatively were very different from the wild, long-horned creatures
whose furious stampede he had now and then headed off, riding hard while
the roar of hoofs rang through the dust-cloud that floated like a sea
fog across the sun-scorched prairie. Here, in the quiet vale, all was
peace and tranquillity.

Wyllard noticed the pale primroses that pushed their yellow flowers up
among the withered leaves, and he took account of the faint blue sheen
beneath the beech trunks not far away. There was a vein of artistic
feeling in him, and the elusive beauty of these things curiously
appealed to him. He had seen the riotous, sensuous blaze of flowers
kissed by Pacific breezes, and the burnished gold of wheat that rolled
in mile-long waves; but it seemed to him that the wild things of the
English North were, after all, more wonderful. They harmonized with the
country's deep peacefulness; their beauty was chaste, fairy-like and
ethereal.

By and by a wood pigeon cooed softly somewhere in the shadows, and a
brown thrush perched on a bare oak bough began to sing. The broken,
repeated melody went curiously well with the rippling murmur of sliding
water, and Wyllard, though he could not remember ever having done
anything of that sort before, leaned back with a smile to listen. His
life had been a strenuous one, passed for the most part in the
driving-seat of great plows that rent their ample furrows through virgin
prairie, guiding the clinking binders through the wheat under a blazing
sun, or driving the plunging dories through the clammy fog over short,
slopping seas. Now, however, the tranquillity of the English valley
stole in on him, and he began to understand how the love of that
well-trimmed land clung to the men out West, who spoke of it tenderly as
the "Old Country."

Then, for he was in an unusually susceptible mood, he took from his
pocket a little deerhide case, artistically made by a Blackfoot Indian,
and removed from it the faded photograph of an English girl. He had
obtained the photograph from the lad who had died among the ranges of
the Pacific slope, and it had been his companion in many a desolate camp
and on many a weary journey. The face was delicately modeled, and there
was a freshness in it which is seldom seen outside