to do as we pleased. You see what has
pleased me."

"And it shall please me to make such a fortune out of this ground, and
build such a home for you that by and by you will forget you ever were
without the comforts you are giving up now," Asher declared, looking equal
to the task. "Virgie," he added presently, "on the night my mother told me
to come out West she gave me her blessing, and the blessing of the old
Bible Asher also--'Thy shoes shall be iron and brass; and as thy days, so
shall thy strength be.' I believe the blessing will stay with us; that
the Eternal God will be our refuge in this new West and new
home-building."

They rode awhile in silence. Then Asher said:

"Look yonder, Virginia, south of the trail. Just a faint yellow line."

"Is it another trail, or are you lost and beginning to see things?"

"No, I'm found," Asher replied. "We scattered those seeds ourselves; did
it on Sundays when I was living on my claim, waiting till I could go back
and bring you here. We blazed the way, marked it with gold, I'd better
say; a line clear to Grass River. It leaves the real Sunflower Trail right
here."

"Who were _we_ in this planting?" Virginia asked.

"Oh, me and my first wife, Jim Shirley, and his shepherd dog, Pilot. Jim
and I have done several things together besides that. We were boys
together back in Cloverdale. We went to the war together to fight you
obstreperous Rebels." There was a twinkle in Asher's eyes now.

"Yes, but in the end who really won?" Virginia asked demurely.

"You did, of course--in my case. Jim went back to Cloverdale for awhile.
Then he came out here. He's a fine fellow. Plants a few more seeds by the
wayside than is good for him, maybe, but a friend to the last rollcall. He
was quite a ladies' man once, and nobody knows but himself how much he
would have loved a home. He has something of a story back of his coming
West, but we never speak of that. He's our only neighbor now."

It was twilight when Asher and his wife slipped down over a low swell and
reached their home. The afterglow of sunset was gorgeous in the west. The
gray cloud-tide, now a purple sea, was rifted by billows of flame. Level
mist-folds of pale violet lay along the prairie distances. In the
southwest the horizon line was broken by a triple fold of deepest
blue-black tones, the mark of headlands somewhere. Across the landscape a
grassy outline marked the course of a stream that wandered dimly toward
the darke