"Whew! But it's hot, and I'm thirsty. And besides it's lunch time."
Alice rose, and with Endicott following, made her way to the camp.
"Isn't it wonderful?" she breathed, as they ate their luncheon. "This life in the open—the pure clean air—the magnificent world all spread out before you, beckoning you on, and on, and on. It makes a person strong with just the feel of living—the joy of it. Just think, Winthrop, of being able to eat left-over biscuits and cold bacon and enjoy it!"
Endicott smiled: "Haven't I improved enough, yet, for 'Win'?—Tex thinks so."
The girl regarded him critically. "I have a great deal of respect for
Tex's judgment," she smiled.
"Then, dear, I am going to ask you again, the question I have asked you times out of number: Will you marry me?"
"Don't spoil it all, now, please. I am enjoying it so. Enjoying being here with just you and the big West. Oh, this is the real West—the West of which I've dreamed!"
Endicott nodded: "Yes, this is the West. You were right, Alice.
California is no more the West than New York is."
"Don't you love it?" The girl's eyes were shining with enthusiasm.
"Yes. I love it," he answered, and she noticed that his face was very grave. "There must be something—some slumbering ego in every man that awakens at the voice of the wild places. Our complex system of civilization seems to me, as I sit here now, a little thing—a thing, somehow, remote—unnecessary, and very undesirable."
"Brooklyn seems very far away," murmured the girl.