As they drove up the valley, Curtis outlined his plan for using the water on a huge agency garden. "I would lay it out in lots and mark every lot with the name of a family, and require it to be planted and taken care of by that family. There are sites for three such gardens, enough to feed the entire tribe, but so long as a few white men are allowed to use up all the water nothing can be done but continue to feed the Tetongs in idleness, as we are now doing." As they rose the grass grew greener, and at last Elsie began to discover wild roses growing low in damp places, and at noon, when they stopped for lunch, they were able to eat in the shade of a murmuring aspen, with wild flowers all about them. The stream was swift and cold and clear, hardly to be classed with the turbid, sluggish, discouraged current which seeped past the agency. "It is a different world up here," Elsie said, again and again. "I can't believe we are only a half-day's drive from the agency. I never saw more delicious greens." Mrs. Parker, being an amateur botanist, was filled with delight of the thickening flowers. "It is exactly as if we had begun in August and were moving backward towards spring. I feel as though violets were near. It is positively enchanting." "You'll camp beside violets to-night," replied Curtis. Lawson pretended to sleep. Parker smoked a pipe while striding along behind the wagon. Elsie drove, and of course Curtis could not leave her to guide the team alone. Necessarily, they talked freely on many topics, and all restraint, all reserve, were away at last. It is difficult to hold a formal and carefully considered conversation in a jolting buckboard climbing towards a great range of shining peaks, and every frank speech brought them into friendlier relation. Considered in this light, the afternoon assumed vast importance. At last, just on the edge of a small lake entirely enclosed by sparse pines, they drew into camp. To the west the top of a snow mountain could be seen, low down, and against it a thin column of blue smoke was rising. The water, dark as topaz and smooth as oil, reflected the opposite shore, the yellow sky, and the peak with magic clearness, and Elsie was seized with a desire to do something. "Where is my paint-box? Here is the background for some action--I don't know what--something primeval." "An Indian in a canoe, _a la_ Brush; or a bear coming down to drink, _a la_ Bierstadt," suggested Parker. "Don't mention that old fogy," cried Elsie. Lawson interposed. "Well, now, those old chaps had something to say--and that's better than your modern Frenchmen do." She was soon at work, with Lawson and Parker standing by her side, overlooking her panel and offering advice. "There's no color in that," Parker said, finally. "It's a black-and-white merely. Its charm is in things you can't paint--the feel of the air, the smell of pine boughs."