Molly Wingate sat in her own little room, looking through her window at the far forest and the mountain peaks in their evening dress of many colors.  She was no longer the tattered emigrant girl in fringed frock and mended moccasins.  Ships from the world’s great ports served the new market of the Columbia Valley.  It was a trim and trig young woman in the habiliments of sophisticated lands who sat here now, her heavy hair, piled high, lighted warmly in the illumination of the window.  Her skin, clear white, had lost its sunburn in the moister climate between the two ranges of mountains.  Quiet, reticent, reserved—­cold, some said; but all said Molly Wingate, teacher at the mission school, was beautiful, the most beautiful young woman in all the great Willamette settlements.  Her hands were in her lap now, and her face as usual was grave.  A sad young woman, her Oregon lovers all said of her.  They did not know why she should be sad, so fit for love was she.

She heard now a knock at the front door, to which, from her position, she could not have seen anyone approach.  She called out, “Come!” but did not turn her head.

A horse stamped, neighed near her door.  Her face changed expression.  Her eyes grew wide in some strange association of memories suddenly revived.

She heard a footfall on the gallery floor, then on the floor of the hall.  It stopped.  Her heart almost stopped with it.  Some undiscovered sense warned her, cried aloud to her.  She faced the door, wide-eyed, as it was flung open.

“Molly!”

Will Banion’s deep-toned voice told her all the rest.  In terror, her hands to her face, she stood an instant, then sprang toward him, her voice almost a wail in its incredulous joy.

“Will!  Will!  Oh, Will!  Oh!  Oh!”

“Molly!”

They both paused.

“It can’t be!  Oh, you frightened me, Will!  It can’t be you!”

But he had her in his arms now.  At first he could only push back her hair, stroke her cheek, until at last the rush of life and youth came back to them both, and their lips met in the sealing kiss of years.  Then both were young again.  She put up a hand to caress his brown cheek.  Tenderly he pushed back her hair.

“Will!  Oh, Will!  It can’t be!” she whispered again and again.

“But it is!  It had to be!  Now I’m paid!  Now I’ve found my fortune!”

“And I’ve had my year to think it over, Will.  As though the fortune mattered!”

“Not so much as that one other thing that kept you and me apart.  Now I must tell you—­”

“No, no, let be!  Tell me nothing!  Will, aren’t you here?”

“But I must!  You must hear me!  I’ve waited two years for this!”

“Long, Will!  You’ve let me get old!”

“You old?” He kissed her in contempt of time.  “But now wait, dear, for I must tell you.

“You see, coming up the valley I met the Clerk of the Court of Oregon City, and he knew I was headed up for the Yamhill.  He asked me to serve as his messenger.  ’I’ve been sending up through all the valley settlements in search of one William Banion,’ he said to me.  Then I told him who I was.  He gave me this.”