"Yes, the sense and the enterprise. Now, these mountaineers,"--he spoke as if she had no part among them, forgetting it, indeed, for the moment,--"they let marble and silver and iron, and gold too, all sorts of natural wealth, millions and millions of the finest hard-wood timber, lie here undeveloped, without making the least effort to realize on it, without lifting a finger. They have got no enterprise in the world, and they are the most dilatory, slowest gang I ever ran across in my life." A dimple deepened in the soft fairness of her cheek under the white sunbonnet. "They got enterprise enough ter want a road," she drawled, fixing her eyes upon him for a moment, then reverting to her former outlook. He was a trifle embarrassed, and lost his balance. "Oh, _I_'ll want a road, too, after a while," he returned. "All in good time." He laughed as if to himself, a touch of mystery in his tone, and he took off his hat and jauntily fanned himself. "Sorter dil'tory yerse'f now; 'pears ter be a ketchin' complaint, like the measles." Perhaps she secretly resented the reflection on the mountaineers, for there was a certain bellicose intention in her eye, a disposition to push him to his last defenses. "No; but a body would think a fellow might get enough intelligent cooperation in any promising matter from right around here without corresponding all over the country. And the mountaineers don't know anything, and they don't want to learn anything. Now," convincingly, "what would any of those fellows in there say if I should tell them that I could take a match "--he pulled a handful of lucifers from, his pocket--"and set a spring afire?" She gazed at him in dumb surprise. "They'd say I was lying, I reckon," he hazarded. With an ebullition of laughter, he hastily scrambled to his feet and unhitched his horse; then, as he put his foot in the stirrup, he paused and added, "Or else, 'Better leave it be, sonny,'" with the effrontery of mimicry. "'Mought set the mounting afire.'" He forthwith swung himself into the saddle, and, with a jaunty wave of the hand in adieu, fared forth homeward, leaving her staring after him in wide-eyed amazement. VII.