“Be careful and please let go of my hand,” she said.  “The time has come when it would be possible to spoil our story.  I’m not going to say a word of love to you.  I am not free yet.  We couldn’t marry if we wanted to.  I wish you to be under no sense of obligation to me.  Many things may happen in a year.  I am glad you are going to see more of the world before you settle down, Harry.  You will stop in New Orleans and see some of its beautiful women.  It will help you to be sure to know yourself a little better and to be sure of what you want to do.”

There was a note of sadness in her voice as she spoke these words which be recalled with a sense of comfort on many a lonely day.

“I think that I know myself fairly well,” he answered.  “There are so many better men who want to marry you!  I shall go away with a great fear in me.”

“There are no better men,” she answered.  “When you get back we shall see what comes of our little romance.  Meanwhile I’m going to pray for you.”

“And I for you,” he said as he followed her into the house where the older people sat waiting for them.  Harry gave the papers to Bim to be signed and attested and forwarded to Mr. Stuart in Springfield.

On their way to the hotel Samson said to Harry: 

“I don’t believe Bim is going to be carried away by any of these high-flyers.  She’s getting to be a very sensible person.  Jack is disgusted by what he calls ‘the rank commercialism of the place.’  I told him about that horse-thief Davis.  He was the man who was going to the party to-night with the ladies.  He’s in love with Bim.  Jack says that the men here are mostly of that type.  They seem to have gone crazy in the scramble for riches.  Their motto is:  ’Get it; do it honestly if you can, but get it.’  I guess that was exactly the plan of Davis in trying to get a horse.

“Poor Jack has caught the plague.  He has invested in land.  Thinks it will make him rich.  He’s in poor health too—­kidney trouble—­and Bim has a baby with all the rest—­a beautiful boy.  I went up-stairs and saw him asleep in his cradle.  Looks like her.  Hair as yellow as gold, light complexion, blue eyes, handsome as a picture.”

That night in the office of the City Hotel they found Mr. Lionel Davis in the midst of a group of excited speculators.  In some way he had got across the prairies and was selling his land and accepting every offer on the plea that he was going into the grain business in St. Louis and had to leave Chicago next day.  Samson and Harry watched him while he exercised the arts of the auctioneer in cleaning his slate.  Diamonds and gold watches were taken and many thousands of dollars in bank bills and coin came into his hands.  He choked the market with bargains.  The buyers began to back off.  They were like hungry dogs laboring with a difficult problem of mastication.  Mr. Davis closed his carpet bag and left.

“It was a kind of horse stealin’,” said Samson as they were going to bed.  “He got news down there on the main road by pony express on its way to St. Louis.  I’ll bet there’s been a panic in the East.  He’s awake and the others are still dreamin’.”