Wayland told you the flowers are the best part of the mountains in
June? Pshaw! Like all the rest of them from the East--stuffed full of
college chuck--can't tell a daisy from an aster! Takes an old stager
who never had your dude Service suits on his back to know the secrets
of these hills, Miss Eleanor. Has he told you about the echo? No,
I'll bet you, not; nor the gorge in behind this old Holy Cross; nor the
cave? Pshaw! See here,"--showing his bunch of wild flowers--"if you
want to know what a sly old sphinx Dame Nature is and how she's up to
tricks and wiles and ways, snow or shine, you get these little flower
people to whisper their secrets! Whenever I find a new kind on the
hills, I mark the place and have roots brought down in the fall. Now
this little mountain anemone is still blooming on upper slopes. Little
fool of a thing thinks it's April 'stead of June, paints her cheeks,
see?--like an old girl trying to look young--"

"But she has a royal white heart," interposed Eleanor.

The Senator looked up to the face of the rancher's daughter and
laughed, a big soft noiseless laugh that shook down inside the white
vest.

"Typical of a woman, eh? Here, take 'em! Why am I an old bachelor?
Now, here's the wind flower; opens to touch o' the wind like woman to
love; find 'em like stars on the bleakest slopes--that's like a woman,
too, eh? And like a woman, they wither when you pick 'em, eh? And see
these little cheats--pale people--catch flies--know why they call 'em
that? Stuck all over with false honey to snare the moths--stew the
poor devils to death in sweetness--eh, now, isn't that a woman for
you?" Spreading his broad palms, the Senator shook noiselessly at his
own facetiousness.