this time--me or my clothes, Mr. Cowles?
Until you meet another?"

"All my life," I said; "and until I meet you again, in some other
infinite variety. Each last time that I see you makes me forget all the
others; but never once have I forgotten _you_."

"In my experience," commented the girl, sagely, "all men talk very much
alike."

"Yes, I told you at the masked ball," said I, "that sometime I would see
you, masks off. Was it not true? I did not at first know you when you
broke up my match with Orme, but I swore that sometime I would know you.
And when I saw you that night on the river, it seemed to me I certainly
must have met you before--have known you always--and now--"

"You had to study my rings and clothing to identify me with myself!"

"But you flatter me when you say that you knew me each time," I
ventured. "I am glad that I have given you no occasion to prove the
truth of your own statement, that I, like other men, am interested only
in the last girl, the nearest girl. You have had no reason--"

"My experience with men," went on this sage young person, "leads me to
believe that they are the stupidest of all created creatures. There was
never once, there is never once, when a girl does not notice a man who
is--well, who is taking notice!"

"Very well, then," I broke out, "I admit it! I did take notice of four
different girls, one after the other--but it was because each of them
was fit to wipe out the image of all the others--and of all the others
in the world."

This was going far. I was a young man. I urge no more excuse. I am
setting down simply the truth, as I have promised.

The girl looked about, gladly, I thought, at the sound of a shuffling
step approaching. "You, Aunt Mandy?" she called out. And to me, "I must
say good-night, sir."

I turned away moodily, and found the embers of the fire at my own camp.
Not far away I could hear the stamp of horses, the occasional sound of
low voices and of laughter, where some of the enlisted men were grouped
upon the ground. The black blur made by the wagon stockade and a tent or
so was visible against the lighter line of the waterway of the Platte.
Night came down, brooding with its million stars. I could hear the
voices of the wolves calling here and there. It was a scene wild and
appealing. I was indeed, it seemed to me, in a strange new world, where
all was young, where everything was beginning. Where was the old world I
had left behind me?

I roll