The foot-hills more than half-encircled the Valley. North, east, and south they tumbled, their brown, closely-cropped sides glowing here and there with the yellow of the quaking-asps, the red of hawthorn, and the bronze of service-berry. Above them rose the higher ranges, clothed in gray-green sagebrush and scant timber, and cut by canyon-forming mountain storms, invisible from the Valley; and far above all, seemingly near, but in reality miles away, the mountains extended their blue, snow-furrowed summits toward a bluer sky. Peak above peak they rose—some isolated and alone, others leaning upon the shoulders of the higher—all silent, majestic, mysterious, as though they held in their great hearts the secrets of the world—secrets of which Elk Creek Valley could never know. Yet the Valley looked very happy and content. Perhaps it had lain so long beneath their protection that it knew no fear.
The creek, rushing madly from the northern foothills, and fed by melting snow from the higher mountains, had cut a canyon for itself in its tumultuous journey from the hills; but as the land became more level, it slackened its pace, content to make but a slight depression through the Valley. Across it toward the west, beyond a great gap in the foothills, stretched an open plateau, which rose in undulations, and extended as far as one could see toward other far distant mountains, on less clear days dim and hazy of outline, to-day almost as blue and distinct as the nearer ranges, though sixty miles away. This great sea of open prairie rolling westward was cut in as many pieces and bore as many colors as a patchwork quilt. Golden wheat-fields, the wheat shocked and piled in wigwams on the plain, met acres of black, freshly-plowed soil, which, in turn, bordered upon the tender green of alfalfa and of newly grown winter grain. Scattered over the prairie stretches, at intervals of a mile, perhaps of several, were homes—here, large ranch houses with out-lying buildings—there, the rough shack of a lone homesteader.
Yes, it was a golden land—smiling and peaceful in the September sunshine. Save for horses and cattle dotted here and there, the prairie seemed almost as deserted as Elk Creek Valley, though its homes promised inhabitants, and a blue line of distant smoke showed where the threshers were at work. Moreover, on the barely visible brown road that threaded its way across the prairie, two specks were moving rapidly in the direction of the Gap. The specks took form, became two riders, a boy and a girl, on wildly galloping horses, which, neck to neck, tore at last through the Gap, forded the creek in a mad splash of water, stirrup-high, and dashed away up the Valley. Reaching the foot-hills a trifle in advance of his companion, the boy pulled in his restive horse, and called over his shoulder to the girl just behind.
“Are Pedro’s feet all right, Virginia?”
“Yes, Don. Jim fixed them yesterday.”
“Let’s take the Mine then, shall we?”
“Yes, let’s!”
And away they went, allowing the sure-footed horses to have their way up one of the foot-hills, called the “Mine,” because some lone prospector, dreaming of a fortune, had dug from its side some poor coal; and then, perhaps discouraged, had abandoned the fruit of his labors, leaving the black heap as a monument to his zeal, and a testimony to the vanity of mere dreams.
They reached the hill-top almost at the same instant, their good steeds panting; they quite undisturbed, and, turning their horses’ heads, drew rein and looked across the Valley. They were a robust-looking pair, red-cheeked and khaki-clad, and as good riders as Wyoming could produce. The boy was seventeen, or thereabouts, well-knit and tall for his years, with dark, heavy hair and clear, blue eyes that looked bluer through his coat of tan. His features were cleanly-cut and strong, and his mouth had a laugh in the corners. A merry, honest, manly-looking lad—Donald Keith by name, and the son of a ranchman on the other side of the Valley.
