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?"