I had given six good years to army service--the years which young men
give to college and to establishing themselves in their life-work. But
the vision of the three men whom I had seen under the elm-tree at Fort
Leavenworth came back to me, and only one--the cavalry man--moved
westward now. I knew that I was dreaming, but I did not want to waken
till the vision of a fair face whose eyes looked into mine should come
to make my dream sweet and restful.

But in my waking hours, in spite of the gravity of conditions that
troubled Esmond Clarenden, in spite of the terrible tidings of daily
killings on the unprotected plains, I forgot everything except the girl
beside me as I went with her and Mat and the children to the new home in
the village of Burlingame beside the Santa Fe Trail.

Eloise St. Vrain had come up to Kansas to let the green prairies shut
out the memory of tall red mesas. About the little town of Burlingame
the prairies were waiting for her eyes to see. It nestled beside a deep
creek under the shelter of forest trees, with the green prairie lapping
up to its edges on every side. The trail wound round the shoulder of a
low hill, and, crossing the stream, it made the main street of the
town, then wandered on westward to where a rim of ground shut the view
of its way from the settlement under the trees by the creek. A stanch
little settlement it was, and, like many Kansas towns of the '60's, with
big, but never-to-be realized, ambition to become a city. Into its life
and up-building Rex Krane was to throw his good-natured Yankee
shrewdness, and Mat her calm, generous spirit; vanguards they were,
among the home-makers of a great State.

My stay in the place was brief, and I saw little of Eloise until the
evening before I was to return to Kansas City. I had meant to go away,
as she had left me in the San Christobal Valley, without one backward
look, but I couldn't do it; and at the close of my last day I went to
the Krane home, where I found her alone. It was the long after-sunset
hour, with the refreshing evening breezes pouring in from all the green
levels about us.

"Rex is at the store, and the others are all gone fishing," Eloise said,
in answer to my inquiry for the family.

"Mat and Bev always did go fishing on every occasion that I can
remember, and they will make fishermen of little Esmond and Rex now.
Would you like to go up to the west side of town and look into New
Mexico?" I asked, wondering why