He doesn't look THAT brave.Later,I asked him if it could be possible that he was with the wagon-train we were in,but he said there wasn't any Mr.or Mrs.Willock in his party,and no little girl named Lahoma Willock.But he's been through what my father went through,and it made me feel kinder to him,somehow.
But his eye is bad.Maybe it got in the habit of shifting about looking for Indians in the sagebrush.Sometimes he seems still to be looking for Indians.Well,I see where's he's right there,and I'm going to tell you why,which brings me to the biggest news yet.
Now I've come to the day when I sent you the telegram,and why I sent it,so be prepared!There was to be a big picnic,today,near a town called Independence,and,as it happened,I didn't feel like going,so begged off--let me tell you why:I began a novel,last night,full of bright conversation,the pages all broken up in little scraps of print that hurry you along as if building steps for you to run down--it was ever and ever more interesting than real people can be.It was a story about a house-party and the writer just made them talk to suit himself and not to suit their dulness as a real house-party must,you know.So I stayed to finish that book.Oh,of course if I had had a lover to be with!But that's something I'll never have,I suppose;but I don't complain,Brick,for you've given me everything else I ever wanted.
The reason I would like to have a lover is as follows:So I would understand the experience of being regarded that way.It would be like plowing up the sage-brush to plant kafir-corn and millo-maize,because until such time,there is bound to be a part of my nature unworked.
Now,there is a nook in Mr.Gledware's library,a sort of alcove where you have a window all to yourself but are shut off from the rest of the room,and that is where I was when two men came in softly and closed and locked the door behind them.I couldn't see them but just as I was starting up to find out what it meant,one of them--it was Mr.Gledware,which surprised me greatly as he had gone with the rest to the picnic--spoke your name,Brick.As soon as I beard that name,and particularly on account of the way he spoke it,I determined to 'lay low'and scout out the trouble.So I just drew up as small as possible in my chair,as you would slip along through the high grass if Indians were near,and I listened.Maybe if I had finished my civilization I would have been obliged to let them know I was there;but fortunately,I haven't reached the limit,yet.
The other man,I soon found,was Red Kimball;they had about finished their conversation before coming into the room,so the first part was lost.Mr.Gledware had come for his check-book,and the check was for Red Kimball.Red Kimball used to be the leader of a band of highwaymen up in Cimarron,when it was No-Man's Land;it was his hand that attacked the wagon-train when Mr.Gledware acted the hero--only,as they were disguised as Indians,Mr.Gledware didn't know they were such till later.He came on them,afterward,without their disguises,and they would have killed him if YOU,Brick,hadn't knocked down Red,and shot his brother!So,as I listened,I found out that Mr.Gledware wasn't the hero he claimed to be,but was THE MAN YOU SAVED;and he is MY STEPFATHER;and I was carried away BY HIM,and taken FROM HIM by the Indians;but he wasn't killed at all.And my name,I suppose is Lahoma GLEDWARE,at least not as Red Feather had taught me,Lahoma WILLOCK.And I am NO kin to you,at all,Brick,you just took me in and cared for me because you ARE Brick Willock,the dearest tenderest friend a little girl ever had--and these lines are crooked because there are tears--because you are not my cousin.
I'd rather be kin to you than married to a prince.
Red Kimball says you were one of his gang of highwaymen but I know it ISN'T TRUE,so you don't have to say A WORD.But he is determined to be revenged on you for killing his brother.And the reason he's waited this long is because he didn't know where you were--good reason,isn't it?Tell you how he found out--it all comes from my getting civilized!He's a porter at our Kansas City hotel.So when he heard the men talking about how I had once been kidnaped by the Indians,and wrote nearly every day to my cousin Brick Willock,which they thought an odd name--he guessed the rest.
It makes my blood turn cold to think that all the time we were living quietly and happily in the cove,that awful Red Kimball was hunting for you,meaning to have your life--and in a way that I'm ashamed to write,but must,so you'll know everything.He means to have you arrested and tried for his brother's murder--and he says HE CAN HANG YOU!
And Mr.Gledware is his witness.That's why Red has come after him.You'll think it strange that after his gang were about to kill Mr.Gledware in the prairie,that he should come to ask him to act as witness against another man.That's what Mr.Gledware told him.But Red Kimball answered that it was all a bluff--they had never dreamed of shooting him or his little girl.
