Vivian caught her breath. Never in her life had she seen such grandeur of color. They stood in an open place—a tiny valley surrounded by brown foot-hills. Beyond, the higher pine-clad mountains shut off the valley from the eyes of all who did not seek it. Some great, gray, over-hanging rocks guarded the farther entrance. Within the inclosure, carpeting the valley and clothing the foot-hills, great masses of color glowed in the gold of the sunlight. The ranger’s garden was a flaming pageant of yellow and bronze and orange, crimson and scarlet and purple between a cloudless, turquoise sky.
“Oh!” cried Vivian. “It’s just like a secret, isn’t 247 it, hidden away up here? I never saw such color in all my life, except in Thaïs, you know, where the women in Alexandria wore such beautiful gowns.” Somehow she knew that the Cinnamon Creek forest ranger did know.
“Yes,” he said understandingly, “I remember, only this is better than grand opera, because it’s real. You see, I spotted this place last spring. I saw all the different shrubs—quaking-asp and buck-brush and Oregon grape and service-berry and hawthorn and wild currant—and I thought to myself that this would be some garden in September. It’s cold nights up here in these hills, the frosts are early, and the sun strikes this valley all day. It’s going to be even more gorgeous in two weeks more. It isn’t exactly on my beat, but it’s near enough so I can make it. Come on. I’ll show you all the different things.”
So he led her from golden quaking-asp to crimson hawthorn, and taught her the names of everything that grew in his wonderful garden. Before they had made the circle, Vivian mustered courage, and, seeing the jeweled pin upon the pocket of his 248 rough shirt, which his coat had covered the evening before, asked him about himself, and if Wyoming were his home.
No, he said, glad to tell her. He was from Maine, and the pin he wore was his fraternity pin. He had studied forestry in the university there, and then, becoming ill, had been sent West to get rid of a nasty cough which didn’t want to go away. But the mountains had proven the best doctors in the world, and he was only staying on a year in the cabin at Cinnamon Creek to learn the mountain trees, and to add a few more pounds before going back home again.
Vivian grew more and more confused as she listened. Here he was a New Englander like herself, and she had been so rude. What would Carver say when he knew?
“It just shows,” she said, “that we never can tell about persons on first acquaintance. I’m doubly sorry I was rude last night. I thought you didn’t talk like a Westerner, but I didn’t dream you were from New England!”
“I’ve learned since I’ve been out here,” he said, “that it doesn’t make any difference where we’re from. Wyoming hearts are just like New England ones, and the only safe way is never to be rude or unkind at all.”
Vivian agreed with him. She never would be again, she said to herself, as they left the garden and went back down the trail to Siwash and the ford. Carver was not there, and the ranger insisted upon walking home with her. He would not have stayed for supper had not Virginia and Aunt Nan, meeting them at the mail-box, persuaded him.