Beside the cañon's rim, in the soft twilight hour of that October day, Eloise St. Vrain and I plighted our troth, till death us do part--for just a little while. Plighted it not in happy, selfish affection, such as youth and maiden give, sometimes, each to each; but in the deep, marvelous love of man and woman pledged where, in sacred moments on that day, we had seen the mortal put on immortality. To us there could be no grander, richer, lovelier setting for life's best and holiest hour than here, where, upon things finite, there rests the beneficent uplifting beauty that shadows forth the Infinite. IV REMEMBERING THE TRAIL XXII THE GOLDEN WEDDING The heart that's never old! Oh the heart that's never old!-- 'Tis a vision of the lavender, the crimson and the gold Of an airy, fairy morning, when the sky is all ablaze With an ever-changing splendor, driving back the gloom and haze! 'Tis the vision of an orchard in the balmy month of May, Where the birds are ever singing, and the leaves are ever gay; Where the sun is ever shining with a glory never told, And the trees are ever blooming--for the heart that's never old! --JAMES E. HILKEY. The summers and winters of fifty golden years have brought to the plains their balmy breezes and blazing heat, their soft, life-giving showers, and their fierce, blizzard anger. And down through these fifty years Eloise St. Vrain and I have walked the love trails of the plains together. In the early spring of this, our "golden-wedding" year, we sat on the veranda of our suburban home in Kansas City, above the picturesque Cliff Drive, rippling with automobiles. The same drive winds in its course somewhere near the old, rough road that once led from the Clarenden home, above the valley of the Kaw, down to the little city of great promise--now fulfilled. "Eloise, youth may have a charm that is all its own," I said to my wife, "but I wonder if it really matches the enduring charm of age when one looks back on busy years of service." Eloise smiled up at me--the same gracious smile that has lighted all my days with her. "You are a dreamer still, Gail. But dreams do so sweeten life and keep the fires of romance forever burning." "When did romance begin with you, Little Lees?" I asked. "I think it was on that day when I came bounding up to the door of the old San Miguel church," Eloise replied, "and saw you looking like a big, brown bob-cat, or something else, that might have slept in the Hondo 'Royo all your life. But withal a boy so loyal to the helpless that you were willing to fight for me against an assailant bigger than yourself. You became my prince in that hour, and all my dreams since then have been of you. When did romance begin with you, or have you forgotten in the busy years of a life swallowed up in mercantile pursuits?"