"What nonsense! I'd forgotten all about it."

"No you hadn't. Tell me, what flashed into your mind when
you saw me in Temple that night before you left Winnebago?
The truth, now."

She learned, later, that people did not lie to him. She
tried it now, and found herself saying, rather shamefacedly,
"I thought `Why, it's Clarence Heyl, the Cowardy-Cat!'"

"There! That's why I'm here to-day. I knew you were
thinking that. I knew it all the time I was in
Colorado, growing up from a sickly kid, with a bum
lung, to a heap big strong man. It forced me to do things I
was afraid to do. It goaded me on to stunts at the very
thought of which I'd break out in a clammy sweat. Don't you
see how I'll have to turn handsprings in front of you, like
the school-boy in the McCutcheon cartoon? Don't you see how
I'll have to flex my muscles--like this--to show you how
strong I am? I may even have to beat you, eventually. Why,
child, I've chummed with lions, and bears, and wolves, and
everything, because of you, you little devil in the red cap!
I've climbed unclimbable mountains. I've frozen my feet in
blizzards. I've wandered for days on a mountain top, lost,
living on dried currants and milk chocolate,--and Lord! how
I hate milk chocolate! I've dodged snowslides, and slept in
trees; I've endured cold, and hunger and thirst, through
you. It took me years to get used to the idea of passing a
timber wolf without looking around, but I learned to do it--