Six years had made many changes in the place, but the same old welcome awaited us, and we became happy-hearted boys again as we climbed the steep road up the bluff to the Clarenden house.  On the wide veranda overlooking the river everybody except one—­Bill Banney, sleeping under the wind-caressed sod beside the Cimarron spring—­was waiting to greet us.  There were Esmond Clarenden and Jondo, in the prime of middle life, the one a little bald, and more than a little stout; the other’s heavy hair was streaked with gray, but the erect form and tremendous physical strength told how well the plains life had fortified the man of fifty for the years before him.  The prairies had long since become his home; but whether in scout service for the Government, or as wagon-master for a Clarenden train on the trail, he was the same big, brave, loyal Jondo.

And there was Rex Krane, tall, easy-going old Rex, with his wife beside him.  Mat was a fair-faced young matron now, with something Madonna-like in her calm poise and kindly spirit.  Two little boys, Esmond, and Rex, Junior, clinging to her gown, smiled a shy welcome at us.

In the background loomed the shining face and huge form of Aunty Boone.  She had never seemed bigger to me, even in my little-boy days, when I considered her a giant.  Her eyes grew dull as she looked at us.

“Clean faces and finger-nails now.  Got to stain ’em up ’bout once more ’fore you are through.  Hungry as ever, I’ll bet.  I’ll get your supper right away.  Whoo-ee!”

As she turned away, Mat said: 

“There is somebody else here, boys, that you will be glad to meet.  She has just come and doesn’t even know that you are expected.  It is ’Little Lees.’”

A rustle of silken skirts, a faint odor of blossoms, a footfall, a presence, and Eloise St. Vrain stood before us.  Eloise, with her golden hair, the girlish roundness of her fair face, her big dark eyes and their heavy lashes and clear-penciled brows, her dainty coloring, and beyond all these the beauty of womanly strength written in her countenance.

Her dress was a sort of pale heliotrope, with trimmings of a deeper shade, and in her hands she carried a big bunch of June roses.  She stopped short, and the pink cheeks grew pale, but in an instant the rich bloom came back to them again.

“I tried to find you, Eloise.  The boys have just come in almost unannounced,” Mat said.

“You didn’t mean to hide from us, of course,” Beverly broke in, as he took the girl’s hand, his face beaming with genuine joy at meeting her again.

Eloise met him with the same frank delight with which she always greeted him.  Everything seemed so simple and easy for these two when they came together.  Little Blue Flower was right about them.  They seemed to fit each other.

But when she turned to me her eyes were downcast, save for just one glance.  I feel it yet, and the soft touch of her hand as it lay in mine a moment.