One thing was lacking from the
preconceived picture his imagination had drawn. There had been no
Mountain Flowers. By that he meant girls.
Every one knows what a Western girl is. She is a beautiful creature,
always, with clear, tanned skin, bright eyes, and curly hair. She wears
a Tam o' Shanter. She rides a horse. Also, she talks deliciously, in a
silver voice, about "old pards." Altogether a charming vision--in
books.
This vision Bennington had not yet realized. The rest of the West came
up to specifications, but this one essential failed. In Spanish Gulch
he had, to be sure, encountered a number of girls. But they were
red-handed, big-boned, freckled-faced, rough-skinned, and there wasn't
a Tam o' Shanter in the lot. Plainly servants, Bennington thought. The
Mountain Flower must have gone on a visit. Come to think of it, there
never was more than one Mountain Flower to a town.
CHAPTER III
BENNINGTON HUNTS FOR GOLD AND FINDS A KISS
One day Old Mizzou brought him a blue-print map.
"This y'ar map," said he, spreading it out under his stubby fingers,
"shows the deestrict. I gets it of Fay, so you gains an idee of th' lay
of the land a whole lot.
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