“There; I turn this business, and all the rest of my business, over to you! And you and Lucy may get married as soon as you like. Consult with Fogg concerning the land to be sold.” The blue eyes smiled from the deep sockets, and the face was softer and more kindly. Already Davison had a higher and more satisfactory opinion of himself. “You are my son, Justin. I have no other son now; and we will try to be to each other what we ought to have been all these years.” “Father!” Justin’s voice trembled; and though when he stood erect he towered above other men, he humbled himself now as a child, and laid his first kiss of love on his father’s wasted cheek. CHAPTER XXII THE DREAMS THAT CAME TRUE The colony from the East had been established, and the harnessed water was doing the will of man. At the head of the valley, where the cultivated fields began to widen into a green expanse of gardens and small farms, Steve Harkness stopped his buggy in the trail and awaited the coming of another buggy he had seen issue from the town. With Harkness sat Pearl and Helen, the latter a slender, awkward girl now, but in the eyes of her father beautiful beyond the power of words to express. The three were dressed in their best—they had been attending church. Harkness shook out his handkerchief to wipe his perspiring face—church services always made him perspire freely—and the scent of cinnamon drops thickened the air. “It’s Justin and Lucy coming,” said Pearl. “Yes, I knowed it was; that’s why I pulled in. I don’t reckon a handsomer couple rides this valley trail, present company always accepted. Davison was with ’em at church, but I s’pose he stopped in town to take dinner with some one.” Harkness tucked his handkerchief into his pocket and looked down the valley, where the fruitful fields were smiling. In the midst of the fields and the gardens were many houses and clumps of shade trees. The flat-topped mountain behind the town lay against the bosom of the summer sky like a great cameo. A Sabbath peace was on the land, and a great peace was in the heart of Steve Harkness. “It’s nice to have a home,” he declared thoughtfully, as he looked at the quiet valley, “and it’s nice to see other people have homes. But until a man is married and has one of his own he don’t know how ’tis.” Pearl glanced down at her dress of China silk and settled its folds comfortably and proudly about her. “I think farming is better than the cattle business, anyway.”