“But the foot-hills are always friendly,” Virginia told him. “And they’re really more like people, because you can get acquainted with them more easily. The mountains, after all, seem more like God. Don’t you think so?”
The Colonel did think so, most decidedly, now that he thought at all about it. He admitted to himself that perhaps in his long journeys across the mountains and through the foot-hills on his visits West, he had not thought much about them, especially as related to himself. He wished he had had this gray-eyed girl with him for she breathed the very spirit of the country. It had been rare good fortune for him that by chance he was standing on the platform when she said “Good-by” to her father, else he had missed much. It was dinner time before either of them realized how quickly the morning had passed; and Virginia ran to wash her hands, after the Colonel had raised his cap with a soldierly bow, saying that he hoped to see her again in the afternoon.
He did see her again in the afternoon, for they discovered that their sections were in the same car, in fact, directly opposite; and again the next morning, until by the time they reached Omaha they were old friends. They talked more about the country, which, after leaving the mountains, was new to Virginia’s interested eyes; and then about books; and after that about the war, the old soldier telling a most flattering listener story after story of his experiences.
The conductor, coming through the car with telegrams at Omaha, found them both so interested that he was obliged to call her name twice before her astonished ears rightly understood him.
“Aren’t you Miss Virginia Hunter?” he asked amused.
“Yes, sir,” she managed to say. “But it can’t be for me, is it? I never had a telegram in my life.”
“It’s for you,” he said, more amused than ever, while the Colonel smiled, too, at her surprise, and left the yellow envelope in her lap.
“Whom can it be from?” she asked herself, puzzled. “The spell of having a real telegram is so nice that I almost hate to break it by finding out. But I guess I’d best.”
She tore open the envelope, and drew out the slip inside. When she had read it, she gazed perplexed at the Colonel. She was half-troubled, half-amused, but at length she laughed.
“I’ll read it to you, I think,” she said, “because in a way it’s about you.” The Colonel in his turn looked amazed. “You see,” she went on, “it’s from my Aunt Lou, and she warned me about talking to strangers on the way. I suppose she thought I’d forget, and so she sent this.” She again unfolded the telegram, and read to him: