nowadays!" grumbled Bill Atkins, as Brick concluded. "It wasn't so
in my time. Up there in the Oklahoma country, fifty years have been
squeezed into a week's time--it's like a magician making a seed grow
and sprout and blossom right before the audience. Lucky I came to
Greer County, Texas--I don't guess IT'LL ever be anything but sand
and a blow."

"It's a great story," Brick declared with enthusiasm. "I reckon
it's the greatest story that America can put out, in the pioneering
line. There they had everything in twenty-four hours that used to
wear out our ancestors: Injuns, unbroken land, no sign of life for
hundreds of miles--and just a turn of the hand and cities is
a-coming up out of the ground, and saloons and churches is rubbing
shoulders, and there's talk of getting out newspapers. What do you
think of it, honey?"

Lahoma was sitting in grave silence, her hands clasped in her lap.
She turned slowly and looked at Willock. "Brick, I'm disappointed."

"Which?" asked Willock, somewhat taken aback. "Where?"

"In him--in Wilfred."

"As how so?"

"Going into that wilderness-life, instead of taking his place in
the world!"

"Well, honey if he hadn't come to THIS wilderness, you'd never of
saw him."