ngs you like. I don't
intend spending all my life fighting Indians and living in the forest."

"If your absence meant something definite," she sighed.

"Meaning if I were in trade," I bitterly said.

The kindly mood was gone. She defiantly exclaimed:

"And why not? Trade is honorable. It gets one somewhere. It has hardships
but it brings rewards. You come to me with your rifle. You talk sentiment.
I listen because we were fond of each other in a boy-and-girl way. We
mustn't talk this way any more. You always have my best wishes, but I
never would make a frontier woman. I like the softer side of life too
much."

"Then you will not wait? Will not give me any hope?"

"Wait for what? Another three years; and you coming back with your long
rifle and horse. Is that fair to ask any woman?"

"No. Not when the woman questions the fairness. 'Another three years' are
your words, not mine. I shall see this war through, and then turn selfish.
What I have done is good for me. It will serve to build on."

"I'm sure of it," she agreed. "And you always have my best--my best
wishes."

"And down in your heart you dare care some, or you wouldn't talk it over
with me," I insisted.

"We liked each other as boy and girl. Perhaps our talk is what I believe I
owe to that friendship. Now tell me something about our backwoods
settlements."

In story-writing the lover should, or usually does, fling himself off the
scene when his attempt at love-making is thwarted. Not so in life with
Patsy. I believed she cared for me, or would care for me if I could only
measure up to the standard provided for her by her father's influence.

So instead of running away I remained and tried to give her a truthful
picture of border conditions. She understood my words but she could not
visualize what the cabins stood for. They were so many humble habitations,
undesirable for the town-bred to dwell in, rather than the symbols of
many, happy American homes. She pretended to see when she was blind, but
her nods and bright glances deceived me none. She had no inkling of what a
frontier woman must contend with every day, and could she have glimpsed
the stern life, even in spots, it would be to draw back in disgust at the
hardships involved.

So I omitted all descriptions of how the newly married were provided with
homes by a few hours' work on the part of the neighbors, how the simple
furniture was quickly fashioned from slabs and sections of logs, how a fe