But for three years I had seen only frontier women, and
weather and worry and hard work had made sad work of delicate
complexions.

"Now tell me about yourself," she commanded.

There was not much to tell; surveying, scouting, despatch-bearing. When I
finished my brief recital she made a funny little grimace, too whimsical
to disturb me, and we both laughed. Then quite seriously she reminded me:

"But, Basdel, your last words were that you were to make a man of
yourself."

In this one sentence she tagged my forest work as being valueless. Had I
been the boy who rode through the May sunshine frantically to announce his
poverty, I might have accepted her verdict as a just sentence. Now there
was a calculating light in her dark blue eyes that put me on my mettle.
She was throwing down a red ax.

"I am self-dependent," I said. "I never was that in Williamsburg. I have
risked much. Before crossing the mountains, I did not dare risk even your
displeasure. I have done things that men on the frontier think well of.
When you knew me back East I only succeeded in making a fool of myself.
The carrying of despatches between Fort Pitt and Botetourt County is
considered to be rather important."

"But, please mercy, there's more important things for young men to do than
these you've mentioned," she softly rebuked.

"If the work of surveying lands for homes and settlements, if the scouting
of wild country to protect settlements already established, if keeping a
line of communication open between the Ohio and the James are not
important tasks, then tell me what are?" I demanded.

She was displeased at my show of heat.

"There's no call for your defending to me your work over the mountains,"
she coldly reminded. "As an old friend I was interested in you."

"But tell me what you would consider to have been more important work," I
persisted. "I honestly believed I was working into your good opinion. I
believed that once you knew how seriously I was taking life, you would be
glad of me."

"Poor Basdel," she soothed. "I mustn't scold you."

"Pitying me is worse," I corrected. "If you can't understand a man doing a
man's work at least withhold your sympathy. I am proud of the work I have
done."

This ended her softer mood.

"You do right to think well of your work," she sweetly agreed. "But there
are men who also take pride in being leaders of affairs, of holding office
and the like."

"And going into trade," I was rash eno