To my astonishment we were meeting as casual acquaintances, much as if a chin-high barrier was between us. It was nothing like that I had pictured. I had supposed we would pick up the cordiality at the first exchange of glances. I stuck out my hand and she placed her hand in it for a moment. "Basdel, I would scarcely have known you. Taller and thinner. And you're very dark." "Wind and weather," I replied. "It was at Howard's Creek I learned you were here. I was very anxious to see you." "Don't stand." And she seated herself and I took a chair opposite her. "So nice of you to have us in mind. It's some three years since." "I reckon your father doesn't fancy me much." "He's displeased with you about something," she readily agreed. "You mustn't mind what he says. He's excitable." "If I minded it I've forgotten it now," I told her. I now had time to note the cool creamy whiteness of her arms and throat and to be properly amazed. She had been as sweet and fresh three years before, but I was used to town maids then, and accepted their charms as I did the sunshine and spring flowers. But for three years I had seen only frontier women, and weather and worry and hard work had made sad work of delicate complexions. "Now tell me about yourself," she commanded. There was not much to tell; surveying, scouting, despatch-bearing. When I finished my brief recital she made a funny little grimace, too whimsical to disturb me, and we both laughed. Then quite seriously she reminded me: "But, Basdel, your last words were that you were to make a man of yourself." In this one sentence she tagged my forest work as being valueless. Had I been the boy who rode through the May sunshine frantically to announce his poverty, I might have accepted her verdict as a just sentence. Now there was a calculating light in her dark blue eyes that put me on my mettle. She was throwing down a red ax. "I am self-dependent," I said. "I never was that in Williamsburg. I have risked much. Before crossing the mountains, I did not dare risk even your displeasure. I have done things that men on the frontier think well of. When you knew me back East I only succeeded in making a fool of myself. The carrying of despatches between Fort Pitt and Botetourt County is considered to be rather important." "But, please mercy, there's more important things for young men to do than these you've mentioned," she softly rebuked. "If the work of surveying lands for homes and settlements, if the scouting of wild country to protect settlements already established, if keeping a line of communication open between the Ohio and the James are not important tasks, then tell me what are?" I demanded. She was displeased at my show of heat. "There's no call for your defending to me your work over the mountains," she coldly reminded. "As an old friend I was interested in you."