ey until it was time to come back again. Then in another August she
would have a crop from her winter wheat, and another in September from
the spring planting. She could hardly wait for the time to come when she
should really have money from a crop of her own raising.

After the three years were over, and the land was hers, if she could
afford it, she was going to college. If she did not have the money then,
why she would work until she did. She would study agriculture at college,
learn the best methods of improving the land, and then come back to carry
them out. She would build a new house in place of the cabin, buy some more
land, and make her ranch one of the best in all Wyoming!

The Vigilantes were in a new world as they listened--a world where the
only capital necessary was ambition, enthusiasm, vigor! Something told
them that this homesteading girl was richer in many things than they
themselves; that the treasures of hard work were quite as precious as
those of wealth; and that Jean MacDonald was finding for herself through
her own untiring labor the things most worth-while.

They were silent an hour later as they left their new friend on the edge
of the mesa, and rode down the hills toward Elk Creek Valley.

"I think it's been about the happiest day I've ever had in my life," she
told them, as she shook hands all around and said good-by. "I've loads of
things to think about and laugh about--until you come again. Give Siwash a
looser rein, Vivian. He won't stumble. Good-by!"

They looked back as they reached the Valley level to see Jean MacDonald
and Robert Bruce silhouetted against the sky-line, and to wave them a last
good-by.

"It's like your 'Power of the West' picture in our room at school,
Virginia," Priscilla almost whispered--"the man on horseback with the
sunset and the mountains behind him. Just look! There! Now she's turned
Robert, and now they're out of sight!"

That night they all sat on the porch together and watched the sunset. A
flaming pageant of color traced and retraced its course across the sky.

"I never saw such color," cried Aunt Nan. "Sometimes you think it's
saffron, and then you know it's amber, and then you're sure it's real
gold, and--it's changed again! See, Virginia!"

"I think I know what it's like," said Virginia. "Mother and I discovered
it years ago when I was a little girl. Jim took us camping once when
Father was away, and at night we had a big fire and sat and watched