“Say, I’ll tell ye,” said Brimstead.  “This country is mostly miles.  They can be your worst enemy unless you get on the right side of ’em.  Above all, don’t let ’em get too thick between you an’ your market.  When you know about where it is, keep the miles behind ye.  Great markets will be springin’ up in the North.  You’ll see a big city growin’ on the southern shore of Lake Michigan before long.  I think there will be better markets to the north than there are to the south of us.”

“By jingo!” Samson exclaimed.  “Your brain is about as busy as a beehive on a bright summer day.”

“Say, don’t you mention that to a livin’ soul,” said Brimstead.  “My brain began to chase the rainbow when I was a boy.  It drove me out o’ Vermont into the trail to the West and landed me in Flea Valley.  Now I’m in a country where no man’s dreams are goin’ to be big enough to keep up with the facts.  We’re right under the end o’ the rainbow and there’s a pot o’ gold for each of us.”

“The railroad will be a help in our fight with the miles,” said Samson.

“All right.  You get the miles behind ye and let the land do the waiting.  It won’t hurt the land any, but you’d be spoilt if you had to wait twenty years.”

The Peasleys arrived and the men and women spent a delightful hour traveling without weariness over the long trail to beloved scenes and the days of their youth.  Every day’s end thousands were going east on that trail, each to find his pot of gold at the foot of the rainbow of memory.

Before they went to bed that night Brimstead paid his debt to Samson, with interest, and very confidentially.

At daylight in the morning the team was at the door ready to set out for the land of plenty.  As Samson and Harry were making their farewells, Annabel asked the latter: 

“May I whisper something in your ear?”

“I was afraid you wouldn’t,” he said.

He bent his head to her and she kissed his cheek and ran away into the house.

“That means come again,” she called from the door, with a laugh.

“I guess I’ll have to—­to get even,” he answered.

“That’s a pretty likely girl,” said Samson, as they were driving away.

“She’s as handsome as a picture.”

“She is—­no mistake!” Samson declared.  “She’s a good-hearted girl, too.  You can tell that by her face and her voice.  She’s as gentle as a kitten, and about as wide awake as a weasel.”

“I don’t care much for girls these days,” Harry answered.  “I guess I’ll never get married.”

“Nonsense!  A big, strapping, handsome young feller like you, only twenty years old!  Of course you’ll get married.”

“I don’t see how I’m ever going to care much for another girl,” the boy answered.

“There are a lot o’ things in the world that you don’t see, boy.  It’s a big world and things shift around a good deal and some of our opinions are apt to move with the wind like thistledown.”