were right. The word ran a sort
of progress in the cattle country, gathering many meanings as it went.
It gathered more, however, in Bennington. In a very few days, gossip had
it that Molly was engaged to a gambler, a gold miner, an escaped stage
robber, and a Mexican bandit; while Mrs. Flynt feared she had married a
Mormon.

Along Bear Creek, however, Molly and her "rustler" took a ride soon
after her return. They were neither married nor engaged, and she was
telling him about Vermont.

"I never was there," said he. "Never happened to strike in that
direction."

"What decided your direction?"

"Oh, looking for chances. I reckon I must have been more ambitious than
my brothers--or more restless. They stayed around on farms. But I got
out. When I went back again six years afterward, I was twenty. They was
talking about the same old things. Men of twenty-five and thirty--yet
just sittin' and talkin' about the same old things. I told my mother
about what I'd seen here and there, and she liked it, right to her
death. But the others--well, when I found this whole world was hawgs and
turkeys to them, with a little gunnin' afteh small game throwed in, I
put on my hat one mawnin' and told 'em maybe when I was fifty I'd look
in on 'em again to see if they'd got any new subjects. But they'll
never. My brothers don't seem to want chances."

"You have lost a good many yourself," said Molly.

"That's correct."

"And yet," said she, "sometimes I think you know a great deal more than
I ever shall."

"Why, of course I do," said he, quite simply. "I have earned my living
since I was fourteen. And that's from old Mexico to British Columbia.
I have never stolen or begged a cent. I'd not want yu' to know what I
know."

She was looking at him, half listening and half thinking of her
great-aunt.

"I am not losing chances any more," he continued. "And you are the best
I've got."

She was not sorry to have Georgie Taylor come galloping along at this
moment and join them. But the Virginian swore profanely under his
breath. And on this ride nothing more happened.

XXIII. VARIOUS POINTS

Love had been snowbound for many weeks. Before this imprisonment its
course had run neither smooth nor rough, so far as eye could see; it
had run either not at all, or, as an undercurrent, deep out of sight. In
their rides, in their talks, love had been dumb, as to spoken words at
least; for the Virginian had set himself a heavy task of