"In my experience," commented the girl, sagely, "all men talk very much alike."
"Yes, I told you at the masked ball," said I, "that sometime I would see you, masks off. Was it not true? I did not at first know you when you broke up my match with Orme, but I swore that sometime I would know you. And when I saw you that night on the river, it seemed to me I certainly must have met you before—have known you always—and now—"
"You had to study my rings and clothing to identify me with myself!"
"But you flatter me when you say that you knew me each time," I ventured. "I am glad that I have given you no occasion to prove the truth of your own statement, that I, like other men, am interested only in the last girl, the nearest girl. You have had no reason—"
"My experience with men," went on this sage young person, "leads me to believe that they are the stupidest of all created creatures. There was never once, there is never once, when a girl does not notice a man who is—well, who is taking notice!"
"Very well, then," I broke out, "I admit it! I did take notice of four different girls, one after the other—but it was because each of them was fit to wipe out the image of all the others—and of all the others in the world."
This was going far. I was a young man. I urge no more excuse. I am setting down simply the truth, as I have promised.
The girl looked about, gladly, I thought, at the sound of a shuffling step approaching. "You, Aunt Mandy?" she called out. And to me, "I must say good-night, sir."
I turned away moodily, and found the embers of the fire at my own camp. Not far away I could hear the stamp of horses, the occasional sound of low voices and of laughter, where some of the enlisted men were grouped upon the ground. The black blur made by the wagon stockade and a tent or so was visible against the lighter line of the waterway of the Platte. Night came down, brooding with its million stars. I could hear the voices of the wolves calling here and there. It was a scene wild and appealing. I was indeed, it seemed to me, in a strange new world, where all was young, where everything was beginning. Where was the old world I had left behind me?
I rolled into my blankets, but I could not sleep. The stars were too bright, the wind too full of words, the sweep of the sky too strong. I shifted the saddle under my head, and turned and turned, but I could not rest. I looked up again into the eye of my cold, reproving star.