“That is the truth, but I would rather some one else than my friends should do that part.” “I thought you liked those fellows that used to go about slashin’ and killin’ right and left. From what I’ve read they used to be a pretty lively gang and didn’t have any special reason for their tempers sometimes.” “Oh, but they did. They had to rescue lovely ladies.” “Yes, and they had a way of ridin’ into town, like I would go into Denton and say, ‘If anybody in this town says Allie Ross ain’t a sight the best looking girl in the county I’ll put daylight through him.’ What would you think of my doing that, for instance? You’d call me some kind of fool, wouldn’t you?” “Very likely I should. But they were not all that way. They went on quests and delivered prisoners from dungeons and slew wicked beasts and giants and things.” “You think that’s a heap nicer than the way we-all do, don’t you?” said Neal with a smile and a side glance at her. “Ain’t any of us ever rescued our friends from the Injuns, and what worse beasts will you find than them? Ain’t any of this generation gone into mountain hiding-places after a gang of thieves? I call that just about as good as any of those book adventures.” “But it doesn’t sound so romantic. You don’t do it for some fair lady’s sake who binds her colors on your shield and sends you forth. Perhaps if I didn’t know you all and if you were not named such plain names as Ira and Bud and Tom it wouldn’t seem so commonplace.” “Maybe it doesn’t sound romantic, but if it was written up and somebody put in a lot about roses and posies and stuff they could make it sound pretty. Now there’s that about Iry and Lou; it strikes me that was pretty romantic, though they ain’t neither of them much for looks and they haven’t those sugar-plum names.” “Yes, that was romantic,” said Alison. “Ira did deliver her from the Blatant Beast, Pike Smith, you know. I do think that was a truly romance. Neal, do you know your grammar has suffered very much by your having been so long away. You were getting to speak quite like a gentleman when you went away.” “Laws, child, I forget. It is so easy to drop into the way the other boys talk.” “But it isn’t as if you didn’t know better, for you say you never used to talk so before you came to Texas. I shall have to take you in hand again.” “I’m perfectly willing. I always enjoyed your taking me in hand.” He smiled reminiscently. “But I set my face agen----” “Not agen; against.” “Against your making me talk book talk. You can play all your tricks and call me anything you choose, and can make believe all you want to, but I’ll not be made to say, ‘Hence, lady, hence,’ and such bosh as they do in plays.” Alison’s merry laugh rang out. “I won’t make you say that, and you needn’t talk booky if you don’t like. I shall be perfectly satisfied with good plain English as we speak it. Oh, you haven’t told me yet what you have brought me from Mexico.” “I don’t mean to tell you yet.”