After the three years were over, and the land was hers, if she could afford it, she was going to college. If she did not have the money then, why she would work until she did. She would study agriculture at college, learn the best methods of improving the land, and then come back to carry them out. She would build a new house in place of the cabin, buy some more land, and make her ranch one of the best in all Wyoming! The Vigilantes were in a new world as they listened--a world where the only capital necessary was ambition, enthusiasm, vigor! Something told them that this homesteading girl was richer in many things than they themselves; that the treasures of hard work were quite as precious as those of wealth; and that Jean MacDonald was finding for herself through her own untiring labor the things most worth-while. They were silent an hour later as they left their new friend on the edge of the mesa, and rode down the hills toward Elk Creek Valley. "I think it's been about the happiest day I've ever had in my life," she told them, as she shook hands all around and said good-by. "I've loads of things to think about and laugh about--until you come again. Give Siwash a looser rein, Vivian. He won't stumble. Good-by!" They looked back as they reached the Valley level to see Jean MacDonald and Robert Bruce silhouetted against the sky-line, and to wave them a last good-by. "It's like your 'Power of the West' picture in our room at school, Virginia," Priscilla almost whispered--"the man on horseback with the sunset and the mountains behind him. Just look! There! Now she's turned Robert, and now they're out of sight!" That night they all sat on the porch together and watched the sunset. A flaming pageant of color traced and retraced its course across the sky. "I never saw such color," cried Aunt Nan. "Sometimes you think it's saffron, and then you know it's amber, and then you're sure it's real gold, and--it's changed again! See, Virginia!" "I think I know what it's like," said Virginia. "Mother and I discovered it years ago when I was a little girl. Jim took us camping once when Father was away, and at night we had a big fire and sat and watched it. The sunset was gorgeous like this, I remember, and just as we were watching it and the fire, Mother discovered what the clouds were like. They're like the smoke as the flames underneath push it through the green boughs! It's just that wonderful color in the sky now. The next time we camp you'll see, Aunt Nan. It always makes me think of the flame-colored veils which the Roman girls used to wear on their wedding-days. Mother told me about them that very night." "Just think how beautiful it must be from Jean's cabin," said Priscilla. "And she can see a larger sweep of sky and mountains because she's up higher than we. I know she's watching it all alone, and maybe dreaming about college."