"Not so easy as in the towns," I interjected.
"Ah! but I've been there, gone all through 'em in the towns," he explained. "That's why the pater packed me off to this wilderness."
And that, thought I, is why the west gets all the credit for the wild oats gathered in old lands and sown in the new world. I pulled him up to the log on which I was balanced, and seating himself he dangled his feet down and began to souse the mud off his toes.
"Say!" he exclaimed. "How are you going to get 'em to her?"
"Take them to the tent."
"Well, Gillespie, when you take yours up, take mine along, too, will you? There's a good fellow! Do!" He was drawing on his socks.
"Not much I will. If there's any proxy, you can take mine," I returned.
"Say! Do you think Father Holland would take 'em up?" He had tied his moccasins and was standing.
"Can't say I think he would."
"He'd let you hear about it to all eternity, too, wouldn't he?" reflected the lad. "Come on, then; but you go first." And he followed me up the log, both of us feeling like shame-faced schoolboys. We stole into the tent, the one tent of all others that had interest for us that night, and deposited our burden of flowers on the couch of buffalo robes.