"Morning, Daggett," Mr. Boltwood put in. "Hope you lose that dreadful red-headed person." "No, I can't, Mr. Boltwood. When Mr. Saxton turned on me, I swore I'd take Pinky clear through to Blewett Pass ... though not to Seattle, by golly!" "Foolish oaths should be broken," Claire platitudinized. "Claire--look---- You don't really care so terribly much about these little luxuries, food and fixin's and six-dollar-a-day-hotel junk, do you?" "Yes," stoutly, "I do." "But not compared with mountains and----" "Oh, it's all very well to talk, and be so superior about these dear old grandeurs of Nature, and the heroism of pioneers, and I do like a glimpse of them. But the niceties of life do mean something and even if it is weak and dependent, I shall always simply adore them!" "All these things are kind of softening." And he meant that she was still soft. "At least they're not rude!" And she meant that he was rude. "They're absolutely trivial. They shut off----" "They shut off rain and snow and dirt, and I still fail to see the picturesqueness of dirt! Good-by!" She had driven off, without looking back. She was heading for Seattle and the Pacific Ocean at forty miles an hour--and they had no engagement to meet either in Seattle or in the Pacific. Before Milt went on he completed a task on which he had decided the night before while he had meditated on the tailored impertinence of Jeff Saxton's gray suit. The task was to give away the Best Suit, that stolid, very black covering which at Schoenstrom had seemed suitable either to a dance or to the Y. P. S. C. E. The recipient was Mr. Pinky Parrott, who gave in return a history of charity and high souls. Milt did not listen. He was wondering, now that they had started, where they had started for. Certainly not for Seattle! Why not stop and see Pinky's gold-mine? Maybe he did have one. Even Pinky had to tell the truth sometimes. With a good popular gold-mine in his possession, Milt could buy quantities of clothes like Jeff Saxton's, and---- "And," he reflected, "I can learn as good manners as his in one hour, with a dancing lesson thrown in. If I didn't, I'd sue the professor!" CHAPTER XIX THE NIGHT OF ENDLESS PINES On the edge of Kootenai Canyon, feeling more like an aviator than like an automobilist, Claire had driven, and now, nearing Idaho, she had entered a national forest. She was delayed for hours, while she tried to change a casing, after a blow-out when the spare tire was deflated. She wished for Milt. She would never see him again. She was sorry. He hadn't meant---- But hang it, she panted, if he admired her at all, he'd be here now and get on this per-fect-ly beast-ly casing, over which she had been laboring for a dozen years; and she was simply too ridiculously tired; and was there any respectful way of keeping Henry B. from beaming in that benevolent manner while she was killing herself; and look at those fingernails; and--oh, drrrrrrat that casing!