Her day-dreams did not cease,but became more dreamy,more unreal,since the hero of her fancies,for whom she now had no flesh-and-blood prototype,was suggested only by her moods and her books.As the sun-clear days of maidenhood melted imperceptibly into summer glow and winter spaces,the memory of Wilfred's face and voice sometimes surprised her at unexpected turns of solitary musings.But the face grew less defined,the voice lost its distinctive tone,as the years passed uninterruptedly by.
I reckon it ain't right,said Brick Willock to Bill Atkins as they went one morning to examine their traps before Lahoma was astir,to keep our little gal to ourselves as we're doing.You're getting old,Bill,awful old--
Well,damn it,growled Bill,I guess I don't have to be told!
You ain't very long for this world,Bill,not in the ordinary course of nature.And when I've laid you to rest under the rock-pile,Lahoma ain't going to find the variety in me that she now has in the two of us.Besides which,I'm in the fifties myself,and them is halves of hundreds.
Yes,Bill growled,and give Lahoma time,she'll die,too.Nothing but the mountain'll be left to look out on the plains.Lord,Brick,who do you reckon'll be living in that cove,when we three are dead and gone?
Guess I'll be worrying about something else,then.
Do you reckon,pursued Bill,in an unwonted tone of mellowness,that those who come to live in our dugout will ever imagine what happy hours we've passed there,just sitting around quiet and enjoying ourselves and one another?