"With you, you mean. Yes, for we'll stop at 'The Sign of the Sunflower' so long as we both shall live. How beautiful they are, these endless bands of gold, drawing us on and on across the plains. Asher, you forget that Virginia is not as it was before the war. But we did keep inherited pride in the Thaine family, and the will to do as we pleased. You see what has pleased me." "And it shall please me to make such a fortune out of this ground, and build such a home for you that by and by you will forget you ever were without the comforts you are giving up now," Asher declared, looking equal to the task. "Virgie," he added presently, "on the night my mother told me to come out West she gave me her blessing, and the blessing of the old Bible Asher also--'Thy shoes shall be iron and brass; and as thy days, so shall thy strength be.' I believe the blessing will stay with us; that the Eternal God will be our refuge in this new West and new home-building." They rode awhile in silence. Then Asher said: "Look yonder, Virginia, south of the trail. Just a faint yellow line." "Is it another trail, or are you lost and beginning to see things?" "No, I'm found," Asher replied. "We scattered those seeds ourselves; did it on Sundays when I was living on my claim, waiting till I could go back and bring you here. We blazed the way, marked it with gold, I'd better say; a line clear to Grass River. It leaves the real Sunflower Trail right here." "Who were _we_ in this planting?" Virginia asked. "Oh, me and my first wife, Jim Shirley, and his shepherd dog, Pilot. Jim and I have done several things together besides that. We were boys together back in Cloverdale. We went to the war together to fight you obstreperous Rebels." There was a twinkle in Asher's eyes now. "Yes, but in the end who really won?" Virginia asked demurely. "You did, of course--in my case. Jim went back to Cloverdale for awhile. Then he came out here. He's a fine fellow. Plants a few more seeds by the wayside than is good for him, maybe, but a friend to the last rollcall. He was quite a ladies' man once, and nobody knows but himself how much he would have loved a home. He has something of a story back of his coming West, but we never speak of that. He's our only neighbor now." It was twilight when Asher and his wife slipped down over a low swell and reached their home. The afterglow of sunset was gorgeous in the west. The gray cloud-tide, now a purple sea, was rifted by billows of flame. Level mist-folds of pale violet lay along the prairie distances. In the southwest the horizon line was broken by a triple fold of deepest blue-black tones, the mark of headlands somewhere. Across the landscape a grassy outline marked the course of a stream that wandered dimly toward the darkening night shadows. The subdued tones of evening held all the scene, save where a group of tall sunflowers stood up to catch the last light of day full on their golden shields.