nded to the plain and scanned the
level world, but it was pleasanter to watch from the cove because one
never knew, while in that retreat, who might be coming along the range.
On the plain, there were no illusions.

Lahoma courted illusions. And when she knew that Wilfred Compton had
severed connections with Old Man Walker she merely exchanged one hope,
one dream, for another. The opportunity to learn about the big world
was withdrawn; but the anticipation of one day meeting Wilfred again
was as strong as ever. She made no secret of this expectation.

Bill Atkins sought to dismiss it effectually. "You don't know about
the big world, Lahoma," he declared, "if you think people meet up with
each other after they've once lost touch. If all this part of America
was blotted out of existence, people in the East wouldn't miss any ink
out of the ink-bottle."

Lahoma tossed her head. "Maybe the world IS big," she conceded. "But
if Wilfred isn't big enough to make himself seen in it when I go
a-looking, I don't care whether I meet him again or not. When I'm in
the big world, I expect to deal only with big people."

"I saw no bigness about HIM," Bill cried slightingly.

"If he isn't big enough to make himself seen," Lahoma serenely
returned, "I won't never--"

"You won't ever--" Bill corrected.

"I won't ever have to wear specs for strained eyes," Lahoma concluded,
smiling at Bill as if she knew why he was as he was, and willingly took
him so because he couldn't help himself.

It was Brick who heard about Wilfred's adventures on leaving the Red
River ranch, and as all three sat outside the cabin in the dusk of
evening, he retailed them as gathered from a recent trip to the corral.
That was a strange story unfolded to Lahoma's ears, a story rich with
the romance of the great West, wild in its primitive strivings and
thrilling in its realizations of countless hopes. The narrative lost
nothing in the telling, for Brick Willock understood the people and the
instincts that moved them, and though Wilfred Compton might differ from
all in his motives and plans, he shared with all the same hardships,
the same spur to ambition.

It was now ten years since the discovery had been made that in the
western part of Indian Territory were fourteen million acres that had
never been assigned to the red man and which, therefore, were public
land, subject to homestead settlement. As long as the western
immigrants could choose among