"for she is always
a-looking for something new, something out of the big world that she
don't know nothing about."

"Never mind, Bill, don't give up so quick," Willock reproached him, as
they turned away. "She's been having a good look at him all this time,
and it may be she have took a distaste to him already."

CHAPTER XI

THE HALF-OPENED BUD

The two men went into the cabin. An hour later they reappeared,
accompanied by the girl. Wilfred was still seated obediently on the
rock, but at sight of them he rose with a gay laugh and advanced.

"Come over here in the shade," Willock called, as he strode toward a
grassy bank that sloped up to a line of three cedar trees of
interlocked branches. "Come over here and know her. This is our gal."

Lahoma looked at the young man with grave interest, taking note of his
garments and movements as she might have examined the skin and actions
of some unknown animal. Bill Atkins also watched him, but with
suspicious eye, as if anticipating a sudden spring on his ward.

"Set down," said Willock, sinking on the grass. "The last man up is
the biggest fool in Texas!"

Lahoma and Wilfred instantly dropped as if shot, at the same time
breaking into unexpected laughter that caused Willock's beard to quiver
sympathetically. Bill Atkins, sour and unresponsive, stood as stiffly
erect as possible, aided no little in this obstinate attitude by the
natural unelasticity of age.

The young man exclaimed boyishly, still smiling at the girl, "We're
friends already, because we've laughed together."

"Yes," cried Lahoma, "and Brick is in it, too. That's best of all."

"_I_ ain't in it," cried Bill Atkins so fiercely that the young man was
somewhat discomposed.

"Now, Bill," exclaimed the girl reprovingly, "you sit right down by my
side and do this thing right." She explained to the young man, "Bill
Atkins has been higher up than Brick, and he knows forms and
ceremonies, but he despises to act up to what he knows. Sit right
down, Bill, and make the move." There was something so unusual in the
attitude of the blooming young girl toward the weather-beaten,
forbidding-looking man, something so authoritative and at the same time
so protecting, at once the air of a superior who commands and who
shelters from the tyranny of others--that Wilfred was both amused and
touched.

"Yes, Bill," said Willock, "make the move. Make 'em know each other."

"This is Miss Lahoma Willock," gro