“I’m glad to see you, Beverly.  You and Gail have been my biggest assets of memory these many years.”  Eloise was at ease with him in a moment.  Somehow they never misunderstood each other.

“Oh, I’m always an asset, but Gail here gets to be a liability if you let him stay around too long.”

“Here is somebody else.  Don’t you remember Little Blue Flower?” Eloise interrupted him.

“Little Blue Flower!  Why, I should say I do!  And are you that little blossom?”

Beverly’s face beamed, and he caught the Indian girl’s hand in both of his in a brotherly grasp.  He wasn’t to blame that nature had made him frank and unimaginative.

“I haven’t forgotten the last time I saw your face in a wide crack between two adobe shacks.  A ‘flower in the crannied wall’ in that ’pure water’ sand-pile in New Mexico.  I’d have plucked you out of the cranny right then, if old Rex Krane hadn’t given us our ‘forward march!’ orders, and an Indian boy, ten feet high and sneaky as a cat, hadn’t been lurking in the middle distance to pluck me as a brand for the burning.  And now you are a St. Ann’s girl, a good little Catholic.  How did you ever get away up into Kansas Territory, anyhow?”

Beverly had unconsciously held the girl’s hand as he spoke, but at the mention of the Indian boy she drew back and her bright face became expressionless.

Just then Mat Nivers joined us—­Mat, whom the Lord made to smooth the way for everybody around her—­and we sat down for a visit.

“We are all here, friends of my youthful days,” Beverly went on, gaily.  “Bill Banney and Jondo are down in the Clarenden warehouse packing merchandise for the Santa Fe trade.  Even big black Aunty Boone, getting supper in there, is still a feature of this circus.  If only that slim Yankee, Rex Krane, would appear here now.  Uncle Esmond tells me he is to be here soon, and if all goes well he will go with us to Santa Fe again.  How about it, Mat?  Can’t you hurry his coming a bit?”

But Mat was staring at the roadway leading to the ravine below us.  Her wide gray eyes were full of eagerness and her cheeks were pink with excitement.  For, sure enough, there was Rex Krane striding up the hill, with the easy swing of vigorous health.  No longer the slender, slouching young idol of my boyhood days, with Eastern cut of garment and devil-may-care dejection of manner, all hiding a loving tenderness for the unprotected, and a daring spirit that scorned danger.

“It’s the old settlers’ picnic, eh!  The gathering of the wild tribes—­anything you want to call it, so we smoke the peace pipe.”

Rex greeted all of us as we rushed upon him.  But the first hands he reached for were the hands of our loving big sister Mat.  And he held them close in his as he looked down into her beautiful eyes.