Virginia of Elk Creek Valley.
by Mary Ellen Chase.
CHAPTER I
THE JOY OF ANTIc.i.p.aTION
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 b.u.t.terflies 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 a real gift from G.o.d.
Don"t you think so, too?"
"Yes, Virginia," said the boy.
Then he gathered up the reins and drove his horses through the creek, and on toward the Gap and the open prairie.
"Don," cried the girl, suddenly clutching his arm with one hand and pointing with the other, "there"s some wild bergamot just opening! I never knew it to be as early as this! And see! There"s a sunflower on the edge of the wheat field! There"ll be thousands of them soon! They"re like Priscilla! She has such big, brown eyes, and is always so merry and sunny. I know you"ll like her, Don. And Mary? I think Mary"s like the larkspur in the Valley, don"t you? So independent, and sort of--of _self-resourceful_, as Miss Wallace says, and true. I wonder what Vivian"s like? Oh, I know! The bluebells back there by the creek. They always must have a shady spot away from the hot sun. That"s like Vivian, but she"s dear just the same, and some day I really believe she"ll be able to stand hard things as well as the rest of us. Tell me, Don, are you just as excited inside as I am?"
Donald Keith laughed.
"Of course, I am," he said, "only, you see, Virginia, I don"t get so excited on the outside as you do. Fellows don"t, I guess."
"I guess not," returned Virginia thoughtfully. "Father says I need you for a balance-wheel. He says he doesn"t know what would happen if we both talked as much and got as excited as I do. You see, I"m seventeen now, and I think he wants me to begin to be a little more--more level-headed, and dignified. But I don"t know how to begin. Things just spring up inside of me, and they have to come out!"
"Don"t try," said the boy bluntly. "I like you best just as you are, Virginia."
She sighed--a happy, little sigh.
"I"m glad," she said. "I don"t know what I"d do if you didn"t, Don. Think of all the good times we"d miss!"
They pa.s.sed a little stream, hurrying on toward Elk Creek. Some quaking-asps made a shady spot where ferns grew.
"Just the spot for gentians in August," cried Virginia. "The girls will love them so! I"m going to try to send some to Miss Wallace. She"ll be in Chicago, so maybe they"ll go safely that distance. She"s always told me so much about that wonderful blue color in the old Italian pictures. She says that no one has been able to make exactly that shade since. I told her I just knew our mountain gentians were that blue, and I"d send her some. My!
I wish she were coming, too! She"s so lovely! I hope, when I grow to be her age, I"ll be at least just a tiny bit like her. You"d like her, Don."
"I"d like her anyway for being such a peach to you," said Donald.
"I"ll never forget it," Virginia told him, a little break in her voice.
"And especially when--when Jim went--Somewhere Else. Oh, Don, she was so good to me at that time! And she seemed to understand everything! I"ll always love her for it!"
Her gray eyes filled with tears. The boy beside her placed his hand on hers in quick sympathy.
"I know," he said. "We don"t find a friend like that every day, Virginia.
I wish she were coming, too! I"d like to thank her myself."
Virginia swallowed the lump in her throat and smiled again.
"I wish so, too, but she can"t, so we must make the best of it. Aunt Nan is next best. She"ll love everything! I know she will. She"s such a good sport, too! She"ll learn to ride and shoot, I"m sure. I hope she"ll want to go everywhere with us, and that we won"t seem too young for her."
"I think Malcolm may go along some--at least before threshing starts. He said he would. Isn"t he about your Aunt Nan"s age? He"s most thirty."
"Yes," said Virginia. "I never thought of it before, but I guess he is.
Aunt Nan"s thirty, I know, because I remember she told me she"d always sort of dreaded being thirty, but now she"d reached there she found it the most comfortable age in the world. I hope Malcolm will go along. He"s splendid!"
"He"s all right," returned Donald loyally.
"Every one"s been so dear at home about getting ready," Virginia went on.
"William put the finishing touches on the flower garden yesterday. It looks lovely, and Aunt Nan"s marigolds are all in bloom. William planted some to make her think of home. And Alec and Joe and d.i.c.k insisted on riding three of the horses so they"d be ready for the girls to ride to-morrow. Hannah"s baked everything I like best, and Father bought two bran-new tents, because the girls want to sleep out with me. Do Jack and Carver ride, do you suppose?"
"Jack does a little. Of course, I don"t know about Carver Standish. You think he"ll fit in all right, don"t you, Virginia? Eastern fellows don"t sometimes, you know."
"Oh, I"m sure he will," Virginia a.s.sured him. "I wish you could have seen how pleased he was when Father asked him to come. And his grandfather, the old Colonel, nearly burst with pride! Of course Carver"s different. I think his father and mother are very--well, _New Englandy!_ You know what I mean. But I"m sure he"ll love it out here. It"s lovely of you to have him at your house, Don. He could stay with us as well as not, of course, but he"ll be happier over there with you and Jack and the boys."
"That"s all right," said Donald carelessly. "There"s always room for one more at the Keith ranch. Father says there always will be. Are all the girls Vigilantes, Virginia--Mary and Priscilla and Vivian?"
Virginia explained. Mary wasn"t really a member, and yet she really was, being the advisor of the society, and general a.s.sistant whenever called upon to help.
"It certainly was a clever scheme," said Donald. "No one but you would ever have thought of such a thing, Virginia."
Virginia discredited his praise.
"Oh, yes," she told him. "Priscilla would have done it every bit as well, only she"d never heard of the Vigilantes. You see, no one in New England knows about them--even Miss Wallace who knows almost everything--and when I told Priscilla the things they stood for years ago, and the work they did against evil-doers out here in the pioneer days, we both thought it would be just the thing to name our society after them. You see, Don, we had to do something! "Twas necessary with Imogene influencing Dorothy and Vivian the way she did, and I"ve discovered that when a thing just _has_ to be done, there"s always some one to do it. Oh, Don, see the wind blowing over the grain! It looks almost like the real sea from Priscilla"s house--all blue-green and wavy--only I love the prairie sea better. Won"t they all just love it? It"s such a big country! I"m getting excited again.
That queer feeling inside has come back, and it"s a whole hour before we get there, and before the train comes in."
"What do you suppose they"re doing now?" asked Donald, excited in his turn.
"I suppose," began Virginia--"oh, Don, there"s another bergamot!--I suppose they"re all out on the observation platform, looking at everything they can see. Mary isn"t saying much--she"s just looking, and Vivian is surprised at all the new sights--I can just see how round and blue her eyes are!--and Aunt Nan is pointing out things, so as to be sure no one will miss one of them. Somehow I can"t exactly picture Jack and Carver, but I _know_ what Priscilla is doing. I don"t even have to imagine or suppose. I know she"s just wild--outside and in! I can just see her jumping from one side of the platform to the other, and exclaiming at everything. Her hair is all blown about her face--she has such unruly hair anyway--and her eyes are almost black, she"s so excited over being so near. You see, I know Priscilla. She"s a lot like me. She just can"t keep still when she"s happy! I know she"s got the same queer feeling inside that I have. Oh, drive faster, Don! I just don"t believe I _can_ wait to see them all!"
CHAPTER II
THE ARRIVAL
Virginia Hunter was right. Priscilla Winthrop, her roommate at St.
Helen"s, and junior partner in the formation of the Vigilante Order, had not been still for ten minutes since five A. M. At that hour she had risen from bed, dressed hurriedly, and bribed the sleepy porter to allow her a seat on the observation platform. It was contrary to custom and orders at that hour, but he had done it notwithstanding. Apparently this young lady would take no refusal.
Priscilla had moved her chair to the extreme rear of the platform that nothing on either side might escape her eager eyes. She had watched the sun rise from behind the first mountain spurs, and gild their barren summits and sagebrush-covered sides. They looked so gaunt and lonely standing there, she thought, like great G.o.ds guarding the entrance to an enchanted land. Between her and them stretched the plains--here white with alkali, there barren with spa.r.s.e sagebrush. Not infrequently the train rumbled across a little creek or irrigation ditch around which cottonwoods grew and gra.s.s was green. In these fertile spots there were always rude houses of logs with outlying shacks and corrals. Priscilla had shuddered at the thought of living in such places. These must be other pioneers, she said to herself, whose ancestors Virginia delighted to honor. Well, they most certainly deserved it!
She had hardly kept her seat at all. There was constantly something on one side or the other which attracted her attention, and she darted right and left much to the amus.e.m.e.nt of the brakeman who sat within the car and watched her. As they hurried through one of the irrigated spots, she heard a bird sing--a clear, jubilant, rollicking song. Could it be the meadow-lark of which Virginia had always spoken? At six they had pa.s.sed through a prairie-dog town, whose inhabitants had thus far existed for Priscilla only in books and in Virginia"s stories. Her fascinated eyes spied the little animals, as for one instant they stood upright to survey this rude and noisy intruder, and then darted into their house doorways.
She had knocked over two camp chairs in her excited efforts to reach the brakeman, and a.s.sure herself that they were really prairie dogs.