She made room for him in silence, her eyes straight ahead.  The wagon cover made good screen behind, the herdsmen were far in the rear, and from the wagons ahead none could see them.  Yet when, after a moment, her affianced husband dropped an arm about her waist the girl flung it off impatiently.

“Don’t!” she exclaimed.  “I detest love-making in public.  We see enough of it that can’t be hid.  It’s getting worse, more open, the farther we get out.”

“The train knows we are to be married at the halfway stop, Molly.  Then you’ll change wagons and will not need to drive.”

“Wait till then.”

“I count the hours.  Don’t you, dearest?”

She turned a pallid face to him at last, resentful of his endearments.

“Yes, I do,” she said.  But he did not know what she meant, or why she was so pale.

“I think we’ll settle in Portland,” he went on.  “The travelers’ stories say that place, at the head of navigation on the Willamette, has as good a chance as Oregon City, at the Falls.  I’ll practice law.  The goods I am taking out will net us a good sum, I’m hoping.  Oh, you’ll see the day when you’ll not regret that I held you to your promise!  I’m not playing this Oregon game to lose it.”

“Do you play any game to lose it?”

“No!  Better to have than to explain have not—­that’s one of my mottoes.”

“No matter how?”

“Why do you ask?”

“I was only wondering.”

“About what?”

“About men—­and the differences.”

“My dear, as a school-teacher you have learned to use a map, a blackboard.  Do you look on us men as ponderable, measurable, computable?”

“A girl ought to if she’s going to marry.”

“Well, haven’t you?”

“Have I?”

She still was staring straight ahead, cold, making no silent call for a lover’s arms or arts.  Her silence was so long that at length even his thick hide was pierced.

“Molly!” he broke out.  “Listen to me!  Do you want the engagement broken?  Do you want to be released?”

“What would they all think?”

“Not the question.  Answer me!”

“No, I don’t want it broken.  I want it over with.  Isn’t that fair?”

“Is it?”

“Didn’t you say you wanted me on any terms?”

“Surely!”

“Don’t you now?”

“Yes, I do, and I’m going to have you, too!”

His eye, covetous, turned to the ripe young beauty of the maid beside him.  He was willing to pay any price.

“Then it all seems settled.”

“All but one part.  You’ve never really and actually told me you loved me.”

A wry smile.

“I’m planning to do that after I marry you.  I suppose that’s the tendency of a woman?  Of course, it can’t be true that only one man will do for a woman to marry, or one woman for a man?  If anything went wrong on that basis—­why, marrying would stop?  That would be foolish, wouldn’t it?  I suppose women do adjust?  Don’t you think so?”