expectation.

Bill Atkins sought to dismiss it effectually. "You don't know about
the big world, Lahoma," he declared, "if you think people meet up
with each other after they've once lost touch. If all this part of
America was blotted out of existence, people in the East wouldn't
miss any ink out of the ink-bottle."

Lahoma tossed her head. "Maybe the world IS big," she conceded.
"But if Wilfred isn't big enough to make himself seen in it when I
go a-looking, I don't care whether I meet him again or not. When
I'm in the big world, I expect to deal only with big people."

"I saw no bigness about HIM," Bill cried slightingly.

"If he isn't big enough to make himself seen," Lahoma serenely
returned, "I won't never--"

"You won't ever--" Bill corrected.

"I won't ever have to wear specs for strained eyes," Lahoma
concluded, smiling at Bill as if she knew why he was as he was, and
willingly took him so because he couldn't help himself.

It was Brick who heard about Wilfred's adventures on leaving the
Red River ranch, and as all three sat outside the cabin in the dusk
of evening, he retailed them as gathered from a recent trip to the
corral. That was a strange story unfolded to Lahoma's ears, a story
rich with the romance of the great West, wild in its primitive
strivings and thrilling in its realizations of countless hopes. The