"So that's about all," Lahoma went on. "These past four years, we've just been to ourselves, with a long journey once a year to the settlements; and all the time I had those sweet thoughts to dream over, about the little family that used to live in the west mountain. And I've tried to do like Mrs. Featherby used to do, and be like she was, and if I can make as fine a woman I needn't ask any more. She'd been to Europe, too, and she'd taught school in New England. Bill Atkins is higher up than Brick--Bill used to know Kit Carson and all those famous pioneers, and he's been most everywhere--except in settled places. When a boy he saw Sam Houston and ate with him, and he has heard David Crockett with his own ears--has heard him say 'Be sure you're right, then go ahead,' that's how far BILL has been. But it sort of hurt Brick's neck, and even Bill's, to look up high enough to see where Mrs. Featherby had risen. She was like you--right out of the big world. She came out here because the family was awful poor. Is that why you left the big world?" Wilfred shook his head. "I'm poor enough," he said, "but it wasn't that. It was a girl." Brick Willock explained, "He's got a sweetheart; he's been carrying her letters for about two years. He's done spoke for, Lahoma, staked out, as a fellow might say, and squatted on." Lahoma looked at him in breathless interest. "A girl out in the big world? Completely civilized, I reckon! Was she as old as I am?" "Why, honey!" Brick exclaimed uneasily, "YOU ain't got no age at all, to speak of! What are you but a mere child? This young man is talking about them as has got up to be old enough to think of sweethearting--something respectable in YEARS." "And how old does a sweetheart have to be?" demanded Lahoma with some displeasure. "I feel old enough for anything, and Wilfred doesn't look any older than the knight standing guard in THE TALISMAN. Besides, look at David Copperfield and Little Em'ly." "That was child's work," retorted Brick. "I was afraid of this," growled Bill Atkins restlessly. Wilfred laughed out. "Don't worry. My eastern girl is at least nineteen years old, and so thoroughly civilized that she thinks this part of the world is still overrun with Indians and buffaloes. She wouldn't live out here for a fortune, and she wouldn't marry a man back East without one--that's why I'm here. I didn't have the fortune." "Does she LOVE you, Wilfred?" Her voice was so soft, her eyes were so big, that Bill uttered a smothered groan, and even Brick sat up. "She did the last time I saw her--can't say how she feels now; that's been about two years ago." He spoke lightly; but gazing into the wonderful depths of Lahoma's eyes, he felt a queer sensation like a lost heart-beat. "Did she send you here as a kind of test?"