ood Sport 262
XIX. Carver Standish III Fits In 277
XX. Comrades 286

VIRGINIA
OF
ELK CREEK VALLEY

CHAPTER I

THE JOY OF ANTICIPATION

Elk Creek Valley was a blue and golden place that mid-summer morning in
the Big Horn Country. It seemed like a joyous secret tucked away among the
mountains, whose hazy, far-away summits were as blue as the sky above
them. The lower ranges, too, were blue from purple haze and gray-green
sagebrush, while the bare, brown foot-hills tumbling about their feet were
golden in the sunlight. Blue lupines and great spikes of mountain larkspur
made of the Valley itself a garden which sloped gently to the creek, and
lost itself in a maze of quaking-asps and cottonwoods. As for the creek
waters, they ceased their tumultuous haste upon nearing the garden, and
were content to move slowly so that they might catch and hold the sunlight
in their amber depths. Beyond the creek, and through a gap in the
foot-hills, the prairie stretched for miles--blue and green with oats and
wheat and alfalfa. Now and then a mountain bluebird was lost to sight
among the larkspur, and always a cloud of tiny blue butterflies circled
above the creek.

Two pair of delighted eyes--one gray and the other blue--gazed upon the
loveliness of everything as their owners watered a team of big bay horses
at the ford. The gray eyes belonged to a girl of seventeen--a girl with
golden-brown hair and cheeks glowing red through the tan of her eager,
thoughtful face. She was radiant with happiness. It beamed from her eyes
and lurked about the corners of her mouth. She seemed too excited to sit
still. Now her gray eyes swept the prairie stretches, now scanned the
mountains, now peered up the creek beneath the over-hanging trees. She was
talking in short, eager sentences to her companion--the owner of the blue
eyes. He was a tall, clean, robust lad--a year older than she.

"Oh, Don," she cried, "isn't it wonderful? Just think! Our dream is really
coming true! I used to say at school that even if it didn't come true,
we'd have the joy of dreaming it anyway. But it's coming--this very day!
And, oh, Don, isn't this morning perfect? When I found in June they were
really coming, I said I'd never be selfish enough to expect a _perfect_
day, because it seemed as though I'd had enough already! But now it's
come, I just know it's"--her voice softened--"it's