Jack also bragged a little of his diplomacy, bidding his daughter note how Miss Mariquita had been pleased by his praise of her sweetheart. "Miss Mariquita has not got even a sweetheart," Ginger declared, "and maybe never will. It isn't the way of her. She was just as proud when you said a good word for Ben Sturt." "Ben Sturt! What's _he_ to the young mistress?" "Just nothing at all--not in that way. Nor yet Mr. Gore isn't. And the more's the pity. But she's good-hearted. She likes to hear good of folk--as much as some likes to hear ill of anybody, no matter who." Jack was a little discouraged--but not effectually. Mr. Gore was much too slow, he thought. Why should Miss Mariquita be thinking of him unless he "let on" how much he was thinking of her? "Did you ever lie under an apple-tree when the blossom was on it?" he asked Gore one day. "I daresay I have." "And expected to have your mouth full of apples when there was only blossom on it?" Jack forced so much meaning into his ugly old face that Gore could discern the allegorical intent. He was very amused. "There'd never be much _chance_ of apples," he said carelessly, "if the tree was shaken till the blossom fell off. The wind spoils more blossom than the frost does." Jack was not the only one who thought Gore slow in his wooing; the cowboys thought so too, though they did not, like Jack, find any fault with him for his slowness. In general they would have been more critical of rapidity and apparent success. Ben Sturt had learned to like him cordially, and wished him success, but Ben was of opinion that more haste would have been worse speed. He thought that Gore deserved Mariquita if anyone could, but was sure that even Gore would have to wait long and be very patient and careful. To Ben Mariquita seemed almost like one belonging to another world, certainly living on a plane above his comprehension, where ordinary love-making would be, somehow, unfitting and hopeless. It had always met with her father's cool approbation that Mariquita kept herself aloof from the young men about the place. But she was not wanting in interest for them. They were her neighbors, and she, who had so much interest for all her little dumb neighbors of the prairie, had a much higher interest in these bigger, but not much less dumb, neighbors of the homestead. They were more than a mere group to her. Each individual in the group was, she knew, as dear to God as herself, had been created by God for the same purpose as herself, and for the soul of each, Christ upon the Cross had been in as bitter labor as for the soul of any one of the saints. She was the last creature on earth to regard as of mere casual interest to herself those in whom God's interest was so deep, and close, and unfailing.