Page:BM Bower - Her Prairie Knight.djvu/159

 eyes at him. "That," she declared whimsically, "is the top of the world, and it is mine. I found it. I want to go up there and look down."

"It's an unmerciful climb," Keith demurred hypocritically, to strengthen her resolution.

"All the better. I don't value what comes easily."

"You won't see anything, except more hills."

"I love hills—and more hills."

"You're a long way from home, and it's after one o'clock."

"I have a lunch with me, and I often stay out until dinner time."

Keith gave a sigh that shook the saddle, making up, in volume, what it lacked in sincerity. The blood in him was a-jump at the prospect of leading his Heart's Desire up next the clouds—up where the world was yet young. A man in love is fond of self-torture.

"I have not said you must go." Beatrice answered with the sigh.

"You don't have to," he retorted. "It is a self-evident fact. Who wants to go prowling around these hills by night, with a lantern that smokes and has an evil smell, losing sleep and yowling like a 155