out and an aurora of white light streamed upward into the sky from the point where the sun had disappeared.
Larry had been deeply moved by the wonder of the spectacle and as the last vestige of color faded, a little cry escaped him. "My God, how I love it all," he said under his breath. "These mountains, and the hills, and the canyons and the rivers. There is nothing I know of like it in the whole world."
Then he covered his eyes with his hands and said reverently, "God bless Wyoming and guard these hills and Crooked Creek ranch until I come again."
The ranch was now hidden from sight some forty or fifty miles behind the mountains, but Larry could still see in memory the long gray ranch buildings with the friendly old cottonwoods keeping guard above them. How well he knew every season upon the ranch; the spring time with the hundreds of little white-faced calves playing on the green carpet of the mesa and vying with the homely little colts in their capers; the summer time with its wild strawberries, wild plums and service berries, and with its wild roses. He had never seen such wild roses anywhere else in the whole world. They clambered over fallen logs and boulders and even up the sides of the canyons. And then in the autumn time there was the goldenrod and asters. Where else in the world was such vital vibrant color as during this season when Piñon birds and magpies flocked for their
