WHICH DESCRIBES A PLEASANT HOLIDAY AND A PRETTY STRATAGEM. Two days later Bim suggested that they should take a day's ride in the open and spend the night at the home of a friend of hers in a settlement known as Plain's End, Harry having expressed a wish to get out on the prairies in the saddle after his long term of travel on a steamboat. "Are you sure that you can stand an all day's journey?" Bim asked. "I! I could kill a bear with my hands and carry him home on my back and eat him for dinner," the young man boasted. "I've got enough of the wild West in me to like a man who can eat bears if there's nothing better," said Bim. "I didn't know but you'd been spoiled in the homes of those eastern millionaires. If you're willing to take what comes and make the best of it, I'll give you a day that you will remember. You will have to put up with a very simple hospitality but I wouldn't wonder if you'd enjoy it." "I can put up with anything so long as I have your help," the young man answered. "Then I shall send word that we are coming. We will leave here day after to-morrow. Our horses will be at the door at eight o'clock in the morning. We shall take some luncheon and reach our destination late in the afternoon and return next day. It will give us a good long visit with each other and you'll know me better before we get back." "I want to know you as well as I love you," he said. "I suppose it will be like studying law--one never gets through with it." "I've found myself a rather abstruse subject--as bad as Coke, of which Abe used to talk so much with my father," she declared. "I shall be glad if it doesn't discourage you." "The mystery of woman can not be solved by intellectual processes," the young man remarked. "Observation is the only help and mine has been mostly telescopic. We have managed to keep ourselves separated by a great distance even when we were near each other. It has been like looking at a star with a very limited parallax. It's a joy to be able to see you with the naked eye." "You will have little to look at on this holiday but me and the prairies," said Bim. "I think the prairies will be neglected. I shall wear my cavalry uniform and try to get a pair of the best horses in Chicago for the trip." "Then you would have to get mine. I have a handsome pair of black young horses from Ohio--real high steppers. It is to be my party. You will have to take what comes and make the best of it."