They turned again. This time the road lay at the very base of the green foot-hills, upon which cattle and horses were feeding. On the side of one of the hills rose a great spruce, and on the ground near it, Virginia’s quick eyes caught a glow of color.
“Is that—?” she whispered to her father.
“Yes,” he said softly. “That’s where Jim lies. We fenced in the range for a good distance all around the tree so the cattle couldn’t go there; and William tended some plants all winter so that he could put them there early in the spring. They’re all in blossom now, you see.”
Virginia could not speak. She watched the great spruce and the color beneath it, until they rounded the hill and both were hidden from sight. Then she put her head against her father’s shoulder, while he, understanding, held her close. Jim’s absence was the only shadow upon her home-coming. Nothing would seem the same without him; and now that he was gone, the girls would never understand why it was that she had loved him so. If they could only have seen him, then they would have known!
“You can see home now, little girl,” said her father.
She raised her head eagerly. Yes, there it was—the green wheat fields, the avenue of tall cottonwoods whose leaves were fluttering in the wind, the long white ranch-house, from the window of which some one was waving a red handkerchief.
“Hannah!” cried Virginia, as she waved her own handkerchief in answer.
A few minutes more and they were driving beneath the cottonwoods. Around the corner of the house bounded the collie dogs, the pups indistinguishable from their mother, to give them welcome; in the doorway stood Hannah, her face bright with joy; and by Virginia’s flower-bed, in which spikes of blue larkspur, reaching to her window, were brave with bloom, stood William—a new William, with the sadness and the failures quite gone from his face.
“Oh, William,” cried Virginia, jumping from the carriage, and running up to him; “Oh, William, it’s next best to having Jim to have you—like this!”