Wilfred shook his head. "I'm poor enough," he said, "but it wasn't that. It was a girl."
Brick Willock explained, "He's got a sweetheart; he's been carrying her letters for about two years. He's done spoke for, Lahoma, staked out, as a fellow might say, and squatted on."
Lahoma looked at him in breathless interest. "A girl out in the big world? Completely civilized, I reckon! Was she as old as I am?"
"Why, honey!" Brick exclaimed uneasily, "YOU ain't got no age at all, to speak of! What are you but a mere child? This young man is talking about them as has got up to be old enough to think of sweethearting—something respectable in YEARS."
"And how old does a sweetheart have to be?" demanded Lahoma with some displeasure. "I feel old enough for anything, and Wilfred doesn't look any older than the knight standing guard in THE TALISMAN. Besides, look at David Copperfield and Little Em'ly."
"That was child's work," retorted Brick.
"I was afraid of this," growled Bill Atkins restlessly.
Wilfred laughed out. "Don't worry. My eastern girl is at least nineteen years old, and so thoroughly civilized that she thinks this part of the world is still overrun with Indians and buffaloes. She wouldn't live out here for a fortune, and she wouldn't marry a man back East without one—that's why I'm here. I didn't have the fortune."
"Does she LOVE you, Wilfred?" Her voice was so soft, her eyes were so big, that Bill uttered a smothered groan, and even Brick sat up.
"She did the last time I saw her—can't say how she feels now; that's been about two years ago." He spoke lightly; but gazing into the wonderful depths of Lahoma's eyes, he felt a queer sensation like a lost heart-beat.