from his kind, the other a trapper by occupation, trying to keep
ahead of the pursuing waves of immigration. It was the first time
Lahoma had seen Bill Atkins, and as she caught sight of him before
his dugout, her eyes brightened with interest. He was a tall lank
man of about sixty-five, with a huge gray mustache and bushy hair
of iron-gray, but without a beard. The mustache gave him an effect
of exceeding fierceness, and the deeply wrinkled forehead and square
chin added their testimony to his ungracious disposition.

But Lahoma was not afraid of coyotes, catamounts or mountain-lions,
and she was not afraid of Bill Atkins. Her eyes brightened at the
discovery that he held in his hand that which Willock had described
to her as a book.

"Does he read?", she asked Willock, breathlessly. "Does he read,
Brick?"

Willock surveyed the seated figure gravely. "He reads!" he
responded.

The man looked up, saw Willock and bent over his book--discovered
Lahoma on the pony, and looked up again, unwillingly but definitely.
"You never told me you had a little girl," he remarked gruffly.

"You never asked me," said Willock. "Get down, Lahoma, and make
yourself at home."

The man shut his book. "What are you going to do?"

"Going to visit you. Turn the pony loose, Lahoma; he won't go far."