s search for her, Seth
brought her home insensible. She had been thrown from her horse, an animal
as wildly wilful as herself.

A little private target practice with a revolver resulted in the laming of
a cow, and the killing of a chicken, and in nearly terminating Rube's
career, when he ran out of the house to ascertain the meaning of the
firing. Once she was nearly drowned in the White River, while bathing with
the Indian children after service at the Mission. She was never free from
the result of childish recklessness. And this feature of her character
grew with her, though her achievements moderated as the years passed.

It was by these wild means that she endeared herself to the folks on the
farm. Seth's love grew apace. He made no attempt to deceive himself. He
loved her as a child, and that love changed only in its nature when she
became a woman. He made no attempt to check it. He knew she was not for
him; never could be. He, a rough, half-educated plainsman; she, a girl who
displayed, even in her most reckless moods, that indelible stamp which
marked the disparity between the social worlds to which they belonged. He
was convinced, without disparaging himself, that to attempt to win her
would be an outrage, an imposition on her. Worse, it would be rankly
dishonest.

So the man said nothing. All that lay within his heart he kept hidden far
out of sight. No chance word or weak moment should reveal it. No one
should ever know, least of all Rosebud.

But in all this Seth reckoned without his host. Such glorious eyes, such a
charming face as Rosebud possessed were not likely to belong to a girl
devoid of the instincts of her sex. As she grew up her perspective
changed. She saw things in a different light. Seth no longer appealed to
her as a sort of uncle, or even father. She saw in him a young man of
medium good looks, a strong, fine figure. A man who had no idea of the
meaning of the word fear; a man who had a way of saying and doing things
which often made her angry, but always made her glad that he said and did
them. Furthermore, she soon learned that he was only twenty-eight.
Therefore, she resented many things which she had hitherto accepted as
satisfactory. She made up her wilful mind that it didn't please her to
call him "Daddy" Seth any longer.

Those six years brought another change; a change in the life of the
wood-cutter of White River. He still lived in his log hut, but he had
taken to himself a wife,