There were tears in Elsie's eyes as she looked up at Curtis. "They have so far to go, poor things! They can't realize how long the road to civilization is."
"I do not care whether they reach what you call civilization or not; the road to happiness and peace is not long, it is short; they are even now entering upon it. They can be happy right here, and so can we," he ended, looking at her with a tender wistfulness. "Can't you understand?"
"You have conquered," she said, with deep feeling. "Under the spell of this day, I feel your work to be the only thing in the world worth doing." Her words, her voice, so moved him that he bent and laid a kiss upon her lips. When he could speak, he said: "Now I want to ask something of you. I have a leave of absence for six months. Show me the Old World."
She sprang up. "Ah! Can you go?"
"When the crops are garnered and sifted, and my people clothed and sheltered."
"I'd rather show you Paris than anything else in the world!" she cried. "I'd almost marry you to do that."
"Very well, marry me; we will spend our honeymoon there; perhaps then you will be willing to spend one more year here with me, and then—well—Never cross the range till you get to it is a maxim of the trail."