"It’s only when things begin to get a little settled that women go at all," said Harry, dashing these dreams. "The real pioneers go alone, and carry everything they want with them on horseback. It must be glorious to ride for day after day in a country where no white man has ever been before, and at last to come to some lovely place where he can make a settlement." "There’s no reason why a woman shouldn’t do that too," said Jane. "She could go alone herself, if the man didn’t want her. She could dress like a man." Pobbles exploded with mirth, at some cryptic joke of his own. "A pretty fool she’d look if the Redskins caught her!" he said. "Shut up," said Jane sharply, relinquishing her dreams of a woman’s empire, "or I’ll punch your head." "Shut up both of you," said Harry, "and don’t spoil things by quarrelling. You’d never do for that sort of life if you couldn’t spend five minutes without flying at one another. You’d have to spend weeks and months together without seeing another living soul." "But you’d be there," said Pobbles. "You’d keep her in order." "Shall you ever do it, Harry, do you think?" asked Jane. "I should like to come too, if you do. I could wait behind till you’d found the right place, and then Tom and I could come on together." "Perhaps I shall some day," said Harry, for whom time and youth seemed to stretch ahead illimitably. "But not until after I’ve been in the army for some years. And I couldn’t be away long from Royd. I might just go pioneering, and leave somebody else to work up the place I’ve found." "Oh, you could leave Jane and me," said Pobbles. "And you could come there and see us sometimes. You would find we had worked it up better each time you came." "I shouldn’t care about it unless Harry was there all the time," said Jane. "Besides, I am going into the army too. I read about a girl in Russia who fought all through the wars, and nobody found her out. I shall be in Harry’s regiment, but he won’t tell anybody. You can too, Pobbles, when you’re old enough." Harry looked at her, and laughed with great enjoyment. He had just seen the woman coming out in her, and been mildly entertained by it through his seriousness. Now she was a sexless child again. "You’re one in a thousand, Jane," he said. "Of course you shall join my regiment, and Pobbles too. We’ll have some jolly times, and when it comes to fighting we three will stick together." Jane did not mind being laughed at by Harry, and was pleased at the prospect held out to her. She took off her jacket, when they set to work again at the cabin, and threw away the bluebells, wondering why she had picked them.