wistfully. "I'd like to show you all my books--they were Bill's
when we first met him, but since then he's given me everything he's
got, haven't you, old Bill!" Lahoma leaned over and patted the
unyielding shoulder.

Bill stared moodily at the top of the mountain as if in a gloomy
trance, hut Wilfred fancied he moved that honored shoulder a trifle
nearer the girl.

She resumed, her face glowing with sudden rapture: "There are six
books--half a dozen! Maybe you've heard of some of them. Bill's
read 'em over lots of times. He begins with the first on the shelf
and when he's through the row, he just takes 'em up, all over again.
I like to read parts of them--the interesting parts. This is the
way they stand on the shelf: The Children of the Abbey--that's
Bill's favorite; The Scottish Chiefs, David Copperfield, The
Talisman, The Prairie, The Last of the Mohicans."

"I like The Children of the Abbey best, too," observed Brick Willock
thoughtfully. "Lahoma, she's read 'em all to me; that's the way we
get through the winter months. They's something softening and
enriching about that there Children of the Abbey; and Scottish
Chiefs has got some mighty high work in it, too. I tells Lahoma
that I guess them two books is just about as near the real thing out
in the big world as you can get. David Copperfield is sort of slow;
I've went with people that knowed a powerful sight more than them
characters in David. I used to drift about with a bunch of fellows
that Uriah Heep couldn't have stood up against for five minutes.
The Talisman is noble doings, too, but not up-to-date. As for The
Prairie and The Last of the Mohicans, them is dissatisfying books,--