rious 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, it seemed, all went smoothly; the whole vale was steeped in peace
and tranquillity.

Then he noticed the pale primroses that pushed their yellow flowers up
among the withered leaves, and the faint blue sheen beneath the beech
trunks not far away. There was a vein of artistic daintiness in this
man, 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 matched its deep peacefulness;
their beauty was chaste, fairy-like, and ethereal.

By and bye 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 leaned back with a smile to listen, though he could
not remember ever having done anything of that kind before. His life
had been a strenuous one, spent for the most part in the driving-seat
of great ploughs 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 a little
deerhide case, artistically made by a Blackfoot Indian, from his
pocket, and extracted from it the somewhat faded photograph of an
English girl. He had got it from the lad he had buried 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
modelled, and there was a freshness in it which is, perhaps, seldom
seen outside the Old Country; but what pleased him more was the
serenity in the clear, innocent eyes.

He was not in love with the picture--he would probably have smiled at
the notion--but he had a curious feeling that he would meet the girl
some day, and that it w