nd laws. Lahoma's going
to be proud of you. You'll take a hand in politics, you'll be elected
to something high. If I lived near at hand, I'd all-time be hiding,
and having her a-conniving at something that would hurt your reputation
if found out, and that would kill me because I couldn't breathe under
such a load. And if away from her, well--I'm too old, now, to live
without Lahoma. She's--she's just a habit of mine.

"So you puts me in jail. They does what they likes with me, hangs me
or gives me time, but the point as I see it is this: I'll be disposed
of, I'll be given a rank, you may say, and classified. Lahoma won't be
hampered. She's young; young people takes things hard but they don't
take 'em long. In due time, them Boston kinfolks will be inviting her
and will be visiting her, and you'll be in congress, like enough--if
you wasn't a western man, I'd say you might be president. And
everybody will honor you and feast you--and as to Brick Willock, he'll
simply be forgot.

"Which is eminent and proper, Wilfred. I belongs to the past--I'M a
kind of wild creature such as has to die out when civilization rolls
high; and she's rolling high in these parts, and it's for me and Bill
to join the Indians and buffaloes, and fade away. Trappers is out of
date; so is highwaymen, I judge.

"I don't know as I makes myself clear or well put, but if you'll catch
up the ponies I guess your sheriff can handle my meaning."

Without much difficulty, Wilfred effected another compromise. They
waited till night before leaving the retreat. The reason accepted for
this delay was that in the daytime the deputies would stop them and
Willock wanted to give himself up to the chief in command. When it was
dark they slipped down the gully whose matted trees, though stripped of
leaves, offered additional shelter. In the cove, they saw the light
streaming from the window of the dugout--that famous window that had
given Lahoma her first outlook upon learning. As the beams caught his
eye, a sigh heaved the great bulk of the former master of the cove, but
he said nothing.

In oppressive silence they skirted Turtle Hill and emerged from the
horseshoe bend, finding in a sheltered nook the three ponies that
Wilfred had provided at nightfall. He had hoped to the last that
Willock could be prevailed on to alter his decision, and even while
riding away toward Mangum, he argued and coaxed. But it was in vain,
and as they clattered up