that appeared now and then in desultory fashion, many of them imagined
that they understood the West and sympathized with it, and appreciated its
bigness and its freedom from conventions.

One slim young woman had just told the thin-faced school teacher on a
vacation, with whom she had formed one of those evanescent traveling
acquaintances, that she already knew the West, from instinct and from
Manley's letters. She loved it, she said, because Manley loved it, and
because it was to be her home, and because it was so big and so free.
Out here one could think and grow and really live, she declared, with
enthusiasm. Manley had lived here for three years, and his letters, she
told the thin-faced teacher, were an education in themselves.

The teacher had already learned that the slim young woman, with the
yellow-brown hair and yellow-brown eyes to match, was going to marry
Manley--she had forgotten his other name, though the young woman had
mentioned it--and would live on a ranch, a cattle ranch. She smiled with
somewhat wistful sympathy, and hoped the young woman would be happy; and
the young woman waved her hand, with the glove only half pulled on, toward
the shadow-dappled prairie and the willow-fringed creek, and the hills
beyond.

"Happy!" she echoed joyously. "Could one be anything else, in such a
country? And then--you don't know Manley, you see. It's horribly bad form,
and undignified and all that, to prate of one's private affairs, but I just
can't help bubbling over. I'm not looking for heaven, and I expect to have
plenty of bumpy places in the trail--trail is anything that you travel
over, out here; Manley has coached me faithfully--but I'm going to be
happy. My mind is quite made up. Well, good-by--I'm so glad you happened
to be on this train, and I wish I might meet you again. Isn't it a funny