Here, everything needful is yours
for the taking. If one is ignorant, or unable to convert wood and
water and game to his own uses, he must learn how, or pay the penalty
of incompetence. No, little person, I don't think the law of life is
nearly so harsh here as it is where the mob struggles for its daily
bread. It's more open and aboveboard here; more up to the individual.
But it's lonely sometimes. I guess that's what ails you."
"Oh, pouf!" she denied. "I'm not lonely, so long as I've got you. But
sometimes I think of something happening to you--sickness and
accidents, and all that. One can't help thinking what might happen."
"Forget it!" Bill exhorted. "That's the worst of living in this big,
still country--it makes one introspective, and so confoundedly
conscious of what puny atoms we human beings are, after all. But
there's less chance of sickness here than any place. Anyway, we've got
to take a chance on things now and then, in the course of living our
lives according to our lights. We're playing for a stake--and things
that are worth having are never handed to us on a silver salver.
Besides, I never had worse than a stomachache in my life and you're a
pretty healthy specimen yourself.
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