"Lahoma," he said one day, "there's a settler over yonder in the mountains across the south plain. How'd you like to pay him a visit?"
"I don't want anybody but you," said Lahoma promptly.
Willock stood on one leg, rubbing the other meditatively with his delighted foot. Not the quiver of a muscle, however, revealed the fact that her words had flooded his heart with sunshine. "Well, honey, that's in reason. But I've got to take you with me after books and winter supplies, and I don't like the idea of traveling alone. It come to me that I might get Mr. Settler to go, too. Time was not so long ago when Injun bands was coming and going, and although old Greer is beginning to be sprinkled up with settlers, here and there, I can't get over the feel of the old times. They ain't no sensation as sticks by a man when he's come to be wedged in between forty-five and fifty, as the feel of the old times."
"Well," said Lahoma earnestly, "I wish you'd leave me here when you go after them books. I don't want to be with no strangers, I want to just squat right here and bear myself company."
"That's in reason. But, honey, while you might be safe enough whilst bearing the same, I would be plumb crazy worrying about you. I might not have good cause for worrying, but worrying—it ain't no bird that spreads its wings and goes north when cold weather comes; worrying—it's independent of causes and seasons."
"If you have got to be stayed with to keep you from worrying, they ain't nothing more to be said."
"Just so. That there old settler, I have crossed a few words with him, and I believe he would do noble to travel with. He's as gruff and growly as a grizzly bear if you say a word to him, and if he'll just turn all that temper he's vented on me on to any strangers we may run up against on the trail, he'll do invaluable."
"I'll go catch up the pony," said Lahoma briefly, "for I see the thing is to be did. This will be the first visit I ever made in my life when I wasn't drug by the Injuns."
"You mustn't say 'drug,' honey, unless specifying medicines and herbs. I ain't saying you didn't get it from me, and knowing you do get from me all I got, is what makes me hone for them books. You must say 'dragged.' The Injuns DRAGGED you from one village to another." He paused meditatively, muttering the word to himself, while Lahoma ran away to catch the pony. When she came back, leading it by the mane, he said, "I've been a-weighing that word, Lahoma, and it don't seem to me that 'dragged' sounds proper. It don't seem no sort of word to use in a parlor. What do you think? DRAGGED! How does that strike you?"
"I don't like the sound of it, neither," said Lahoma, shaking her head. "I think DRUG is softer. It kinder melts in the ear, and DRAGGED sticks."