Smith nodded, and slowly lowered his foot, looking up at her with sly confidence, as if discovering to her a mighty secret which he had just become convinced she was worthy to share.
“Well, so am I,” said he.
It began to look like dangerous ground, but she didn’t know how to turn him. Thinking to try a show of abstract interest, she told him she was glad to hear it.
“There’s money to be made in this country,” he continued, warming up to his argument, “and I know how to make it. Inside of five years I’ll be able to put up a house with a cupola on it, and a picket fence in front, and grass in the yard, for the woman that marries me.”
“I believe you will,” she agreed. “What kind of a noise does a bear make?”
“Dang bears!” said Smith, disconcerted by having his plans thrown out of joint in such an abrupt way.
“I thought I heard one the night before last,” she went on. “I was afraid.”
“No need to be,” he assured her. “Bears don’t 276 come down here any more. What could a bear live on down here, I’d like to know? Snakes? Well, bears don’t eat snakes.”
“Oh!” said she, enlightened.
“There’s not a bear in a hundred miles of here,” he told her.