"Not--for always?" She had stopped and was looking up into his face with delicious dismay. "That would be awful." "Most of my friends, and all of my business interests are here. Besides, I have a kind of pride in growing up with this country. Back in the East, things have been settled for so long that a man's only a cog in a machine. Out here, a fellow has a sense of ownership, even in the hills. I think it's because he gets closer to the soil, until he comes to love it and to be almost a part of it." "Oh, dear!" exclaimed the girl. "That sounds fine, but the reality isn't up to my anticipation of it." Wade laughed in his hearty way. "That's only because you haven't been here long enough, Helen." "There are things that are splendid about the West," she generously admitted. "Its vastness and wholesomeness, and especially its men. I'm sure that's why I first liked you, Gordon, because you were _different_--not like the general run of young men in the East." "Oh, there are lots of good men East, too." "Not so very many. At least, I have seen very few who were at all worth while. There's one, Maxwell Frayne, who has been plaguing me for months; but I don't care for him--much." She was closely watching him as she spoke, and she smiled when he started. "You'd better not." "But if I really thought you meant to stay here all the time, I'm sure I'd love him devotedly. Now"--she eyed him mischievously--"I think this would be a nice place to call home, don't you know, just for fun, and then spend most of the time in New York and London. See that man staring at me!" "How, staring at you?" Wade turned and looked in the direction she indicated, surprised at the suggestion that she was being annoyed in Crawling Water, where chivalry to women ran high. "Oh, he didn't mean anything, I daresay." "They're friends of mine, and curious, perhaps." He referred to a group of cattlemen across the street, who did seem to be staring and talking, with some indecision in their attitude. "I wonder if anything can have happened? Oh, I guess not. Well, what would I do in London?" "I didn't say anything about _you_ being in London, did I?" "Well, it's safe to say that where you were, I'd want to be, at any rate. Haven't I made two trips to Chicago for no real reason except to see you?" he demanded, fast slipping into the thralldom of her fascination. She viewed him through half-closed eyes, knowing that the pose has always allured him. "Don't you think you'd be kept busy looking after me?" she playfully asked. "Seriously, I hate an idle man, but I don't know what you'd find to do there. What a question. You'd have to have investments that would take you over every year or two." "Now you're trying to make a city man of me," he said, half in jest. "Besides,"--a dogged note crept into his voice--"I'd have the right to expect something of you, wouldn't I?" "Not the right, but the privilege," she answered softly.