"Nonsense! Don't be so touchy. I wish I had it. You'll go where there are people and things happening. You'll keep the ranch, but Tom will look after it."
"No, no."
"Yes, yes. You won't be idle—you're not that kind—but you'll find other interests, and the money may be a stepping-stone. She's a dear girl, Casey. Be good to her."
"I couldn't be anything else. You needn't tell me I'm not worthy of her; I know it."
"You're worthy of any girl," she said firmly. "Not a bit of hot air, either, old boy. I almost fell in love with you myself."
"By George!" he exclaimed, "there were times when I wondered how much I thought of you."
She laughed, well pleased. "We know the difference now, don't we? What a mistake it would have been! I'm glad we kept these thoughts to ourselves—glad we never played at being in love. Now we can talk without fear of misunderstanding. Somehow, now, the years here seem like a dream to me. Yes, I know they've been busy years, crowded with work for both of us; but just now they don't seem real. We seem—I seem—to be standing at the boundary of a new life. All that is over was just preparation for it—the long days in the sun and the wind, the quiet nights beneath the stars, the big, lonely, brown land, and the hazy blue of the hills. The girl that lived among them seems like a little, dead sister. And yet I love these things. Wherever I go, whatever happens to me, I shall think of them always."
"That's absolutely true. They are in your heart—a part of you. I understand. The little boy that lay on a lake shore years ago and watched the old stone hookers wallowing through the long swells doesn't seem to be Casey Dunne. And yet I can smell the wet sand and the clean lake breezes now. These are the things that keep our hearts young. You were born in the West, Sheila, and I in the East; but the roots of our beings fed on the clean things of the earth that mothered us some thousands of miles apart, and the taste will never be forgotten. In the years to come we will think of the years here as to-night we think of our childhood."
She held out her hand. Gauntlet met gauntlet in the hard grip of comradeship.
"Good-bye, Casey. It's not likely we'll ever talk of these things again. I'm glad you've been a part of my life."