"I love them," said Mary Lee, fervently. "I wish I knew as much about them as you do."
"I could tell you a good bit," said Jo, "and I could show you some queer corners of the earth where things go on you wouldn't suspect. Any time you want to go 'long, I'll be glad of your company. I get off about this time every evening." So almost every day after this the two could be seen trudging off together, talking earnestly, and as the secrets of the woods were revealed to her, Mary Lee became very confidential with Jo Poker.
"If I had a gal," he told her one day, "I'd like her to be just like you. I'd like her to want to go traipsing through the bogs and over rough ground, to be fond of the beasts and birds, to like the smell of the earth and the dry leaves, and not to mind camping out in the open."
"Maybe your daughter would be like that if you should find her," said Mary Lee.
He shook his head. "I've give her up, you know."
"But why should you? I am sure you could take care of her?"
"In a way, but she mightn't like my way. She might want store clothes and fancy hats. She might mope if she hadn't company, and she mightn't want to turn her hand to making a home. I've thought it all out, and I reckon it's better to let well enough alone."
"Maybe you are right about it," said Mary Lee slowly, and thinking of the señorita. She could not imagine Miss Dolores tramping the silent woods, cooking a meal over a camp-fire or sleeping in a mountain hut. No, she agreed with Jo, it was better to let well enough alone. Yet during one of their tramps and in a burst of confidence she told him the señorita's story.
He listened silently, poking the rich leaf mould beneath him as he sat on a fallen log.
"What did you say her name was?" he asked.