Virginia smiled. She did enjoy being treated like a young lady. “Certainly,” she said. And she told him all about poor old Jim, his wooden leg, the accident that necessitated it, his learning to read, which greatly interested the old Colonel, and his kindness to her ever since she was a little girl. Then, seeing that he really liked to know, she told him of the evening before, and the new saddle which the boys had given her.
“Capital!” cried the Colonel, slapping his knee in his excitement, quite to the amusement of a little boy, who had come out-of-doors and who sat with his mother on the other side of the platform. “Capital! Just what they should have done, too! They must be fine fellows. I’d like to know them.”
“Oh, you would like them!” she told him. “I know you would! I love them all, but Jim the best. And this morning, Colonel Standish” (for if he called her by name she must return the courtesy), “this morning when the other men had all gone to the round-up, Jim harnessed the horses for father to drive me to the station. But he felt so bad to have me go away that he couldn’t bear to bring the horses up to the door, so he tied them and called to father; and when we drove away and I looked back, he was leaning all alone against the bunk-house. And, some way, I think he was crying.”
She looked up at the Colonel, her eyes filled with tears. The Colonel slapped his knee again, and blew his nose vigorously.
“I shouldn’t wonder a bit if that’s what he was doing, Miss Virginia,” he said. “Fine old man! And what about William?” he asked after a few moments.
“Oh, William,” said Virginia. “You’d like William; and I’m sure you wouldn’t call him ‘Bill’ like some do. It makes such a difference to him! If you call him ‘Bill’ most of the time, he’s just Bill, and it’s a lot easier for him to stay around the saloon. But if you say ‘William,’ it makes it easier for him to keep away—he told me so one day. And in his spare time, he loves to take care of flowers, and plant vines and trees.”
The Colonel liked William. Indeed, he liked him so thoroughly that he asked question after question concerning him; and then about Alec and Joe and Dick. It was amazing how the time flew! Another hour passed before either of them imagined it. The country was changing. Already it was becoming more open, less mountainous. Some peaks towered in the distance—blue and hazy and snow-covered.
“We can see those from home,” Virginia told the Colonel. “They’re the highest in all the country round. They’re the last landmark of home I’ll see, I suppose,” she finished wistfully, and was sorry when a bend of the road hid them from sight.
“You love the mountains?” he said, half-questioning.
“Oh, yes,” she cried, “better than anything!” And then they talked of the mountains, and of how different they were at different times, like persons with joys and disappointments and ideals. How on some days they seemed silent and reserved and solemn, and on others sunny and joyous and almost friendly; and how at night one somehow felt better acquainted with them than in the day-time.