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During whole afternoons he sat there looking out over the Bad Lands. At sunset he returned to camp. Aliris: A Romance of all Time gathered dust. Letters home remained unwritten. Prospecting was left to the capable hands of Old Mizzou until, much to Bennington's surprise, that individual resigned his position. The samples lay in neatly tied coffee sacks just outside the door.
As Bennington had for some time tentatively revolved in his mind the desirability of something to ride, this struck him as being a good idea. All Westerners had horses in the books. So he abandoned Aliris: A Romance of all Time, for the morning, and drove down to Spanish Gulch with Old Mizzou. He was mentally braced for devilment, but his arch-enemy, Fay, was not in sight.
He felt very capable of doing the love story. He drew some paper toward him and began to write. You see he was already developing. Every time a writer is made to appreciate that his work is poor he has taken a step in advance of it. Although he did not know that was the reason of it, Bennington perceived the deficiencies of Aliris, because he had promised to read it to the girl.
As to the assessment work, Old Mizzou had already assured him there was no immediate hurry; men were cheaper in the fall. As to investigating, he started in on that at once. He and Davidson climbed down shafts, and broke off ore, and worked the gold pan. It was fun. In the morning Bennington decided to work from seven until ten on Aliris. Then for three hours he and Old Mizzou prospected.
He laid the scene in Arabia and decided to call it Aliris: A Romance of all Time, because he liked the smooth, easy flow of the syllables. The consciousness that he could do all this sugar-coated his Wild Western experiences, which otherwise might have been a little disagreeable. He could comfort himself with the reflection that he was superior, if ridiculous.
After supper that night Bennington found himself unaccountably alone in camp. Old Mizzou had wandered off up the gulch. Arthur had wandered off down the gulch. The woman had locked herself in her cabin. So, having nothing else to do, he got out the manuscript of Aliris: A Romance of all Time, and read it through carefully from the beginning. To his surprise he found it very poor.
Now the impatience grew in intensity. He resolved that if the morrow did not end the storm, he would tramp down the gulch to make a call. All this time Aliris lay quite untouched. The next day dawned darker than ever. After breakfast Old Mizzou, as usual, went out to feed the horses, and Bennington, through sheer idleness, accompanied him.
In a very few days they were as intimate as though they had known each other for years. Bennington read to her certain rewritten parts of Aliris: A Romance of all Time, which would have been ridiculous to any but these two. They saw it through the glamour of youth; for, in spite of her assertions of great age, the girl, too, felt the whirl of that elixir in her veins.
It was all delightful and new, and he wanted to tell her of it. He did so. After a little he told her about Aliris: A Romance of all Time, in which she appeared so interested that he detailed the main idea and the plot. At her request, he promised to read it to her.
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