The young soldier tried to open it with steady fingers, for the address was in a handwriting he knew well. Inside a flat little box was a card bearing the words: To Prince Quippi, Beyond the Purple Notches. And underneath that lay a withered little yellow sunflower. * * * * * Two evenings later as the three men sat together, Horace Carey suddenly gripped Thaine's hand in his, then sank back in his chair with eyes that seemed looking straight into eternal peace; and the same smile that had won men to him seemed winning the angels to welcome him heavenward. In the midst of his busy, useful years his big work was done. * * * * * The sunflowers were just beginning to blossom along the old Grass River Trail. The line of timber following every stream was in the full leafage of May. The wheat lay like a yellow-green sea over all the wide prairies. The breeze came singing down the valley, a morning song of gladness. Leigh Shirley had come up early to the Sunflower Ranch to spend the day and night with Virginia Aydelot, while Asher and her uncle Jim took a two days' business trip to Big Wolf with Darley Champers. Jim had brought Virginia a big bunch of exquisite roses which nobody but Jim Shirley could ever have grown to such perfection. Virginia went into the house to find the tall cut-glass vase Doctor Carey had sent to her when he started West, while Leigh went to the gate of the side lot to pet a pretty black colt that whinnied to her. "You beautiful Juno!" she cried, patting the creature's nose. "Mrs. Aydelot says you are as graceful and well-bred as all your grandmothers have been since the time a Juno long ago followed a prairie schooner down the old Grass River Trail to a little sod shack on a treeless claim in the wilderness. This is too fine a morning to go indoors," she added as she came back to the front lawn to the seat under the fragrant white honeysuckle. She was as sweet as a blossom herself this morning, with her soft brown-gold hair waving back from her face, and her blue eyes full of light. Somebody had turned from the road and was coming up the walk with springing step. Leigh turned her head to see who it might be, as she reached for a spray of the fragrant honeysuckle, and found Thaine Aydelot standing before her. With a glad cry, she dropped the blossoms and sprang to her feet.