"Why?"
"He was a stranger. You didn't even know his name."
"I do now. It's Harold Brook. Besides, in this country, you don't have to know people's names. You just speak anyway."
"Oh, do you?" I said, sarcastically. "So I see."
"Don't be cross," she coaxed. "See, I can beat you to that badger-hole. One—two—three—"
She was off like the wind. For a moment I hesitated, then joined in the race. But she had too much start, and besides, she was almost a match for me. She reached the little mound first, and as she turned she swerved a little from her course, and I happened to plunge into her. To save herself from falling she seized me about the neck, and her hair brushed against my face. . . . . . .
We walked back slowly, arm in arm, and I had a sense of being very much of a brute. . . Jean had wound me around her little finger.
So the days and nights went by. The sun was almost setting on the eighth day, and the prairie, now gorgeous in its spring fluffery of anemones, had taken on its evening richness of green when we at length drew up close to the bank of the gully on Fourteen. For an hour or more we had been straining our eyes for a glimpse of the promised land, but as it looked exactly the same as all the other land for miles around we could not be sure of Fourteen until the gully came into view. Then we threw up our hats and rushed ahead, leaving the oxen to come as they chose. They chose not to come at all, and Buck actually lay down in the road.
There are certain thrills of accomplishment, certain epochs of development, which come only once in a life-time. One of these is when a young man writes his first cheque, or first turns his key in his own door, or first sees his name on an office signboard. But the greatest is when he first looks upon land he can call his own. True, this land was not yet ours, but it was pledged to us if we carried out our part of a very simple agreement, and already we had a proprietary interest in it. We showed it to the girls with the pride of a mother displaying her first born. We were desperately anxious that our choice should be justified.
We waited for their verdict, but neither spoke. "Well, what do you think of it?" Jack asked at length.