"An'—you'll bring her along with you?"
The eyes of the two men met. Each was reading the other like an open book.
Jeff shook his head. Somehow there was nothing absurd to him in Bud's suggestion. There was nothing startling even in the probing of his secret with so much directness.
"I haven't asked her—yet."
Then it was that the big heart of the friend, who was almost a father, made itself apparent.
"But you're goin' to, Jeff. An' she's goin' to take you. Say, Jeff, she's one lucky woman."
In a moment the tide of the younger man's feelings was set flowing. In a moment the egoism of the lover made a generous nature forget all else but the passion that absorbed him. In a moment the thought that this man was Nan's father, and that the dearest wish of his life was that he, Jeff, should marry his daughter, was forgotten.
"Lucky? But you got it wrong, Bud," Jeff cried, sitting erect, his face flushed with the passionate stirring of Ills strong heart. "It's I who'll be lucky, if she don't turn me down. Man, I'm not worth the dust on her shoes. I'm not fit to lackey for her. Nor—nor is any other feller. Say, Bud," he went on, leaning impressively forward, his eyes shining with his passion, "I'm just crazy to death for her. And—and I can't just help it. I'd go through hell's flames for her, man, I'd——"
"Say, boy, don't worry that-a-way. Jest marry her instead," Bud broke in with his gentlest smile. "You're all sorts of a boy, Jeff, and I don't figger you got call to talk about the dust of any woman's shoes. But I guess ther's times when it's good fer a man to feel he ain't as big as he's told. Anyways, you get right ahead, and leave me to the Obars. I ain't goin' to fail you now, any more than any other time." Then he rumpled his stubbly hair again, and it was an action that suggested heavy thought. "Say," he went on, a moment later, his eyes looking squarely into the face of the other, "we're hittin' the trail good an' early to-morrow. Guess you best let me say 'good-bye' to Nan for you. That so?"
Jeff nodded. He understood. And somehow the bigness of this man made him almost despise himself.