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said. “It ain’t easy.”
    â€œIs it that you cannot…or will not?”
    â€œMr. Chantry, that there cabin is where she comes to be
alone
. She’s got a right…once in a while. I figure maybe she needs to have her a place, and I don’t want—”
    â€œDoby,” he was patient. I could sense his patience. And his irritation, too. “That cabin is mine. I plan to live there, to return there from wherever I go. I, too, need a place to be alone.
    â€œI am not,” he paused just for a moment, “going to interfere with her solitude. There are other places in the forest and mountains where she can be. But I must go there. I have business there.…And perhaps I wish to see her.”
    â€œYou’ll get her in trouble, Mr. Chantry.”
    â€œDoby,” his patience was wearing thin. “You don’t even know that girl…or woman. You don’t even know who she is or what. You’re making a thing out of this that it should not be.”
    â€œI just don’t like it,” I said stubbornly. “She even swept up. She dusted. She had everything to rights. She put out flowers. She loves the place like it is.…”
    â€œAll that may be true,” Chantry said quietly. “But it’s my place, and I must go there.”
    A thought came to me at a sudden, a chance to get the better of him. “How about your brother? Maybe he give her the right to go there. Maybe he even
give
the place to her.”
    It was a point, and he saw it. “Not that place, Doby,” he said then. “Some other place, maybe, but not that one.”
    â€œWhat’s so different about it?” I demanded.
    â€œIt’s a whole lot different.” His voice was harsh. “Don’t mix into things you don’t understand, boy. Just remember this: that cabin is mine, and there’s a lot more to it than you know.”
    Well…maybe. All of a sudden, I didn’t like him nearly so much.
    Yet, a man had to be fair. What he said was straight-enough talk. This here ranch was his, and he was lettin’ us have it. He couldn’t be more decent than that. When he could have told us to load up an’ git.
    He done no such thing. Plus he’d stood by us in trouble.
    But still it rankled.
    Fair was fair. And it come to me that all I was sore over was because he was buttin’ into my dream. I’d been dreamin’ of a girl up there at that cabin, a girl who was
mine
somehow. When I’d never even seen her, didn’t even know if she
was
a girl, an’ not some growed-up grandma of a woman.
    Maybe it was because I was kind of short on dreams and short of girls to think on. A body needs somethin’ to build a dream with. Which was why, when I come to consider it, I’d not been too anxious to meet up with that girl.…Because once I seen her, and her me, the dream might be gone forever.
    She might figger I was no account, or she might be nothing a man could be proud of herself. Just because a woman sweeps the floor and puts flowers in a pot don’t make her a princess. Nor even a girl to walk with.…
    She might be old and fat. She might be a married lady with babies. She might be anything.
    The trouble was that all my thinkin’ wouldn’t shake loose my dream, of her being young and gold and beautiful.
    She
had
to be. She just had to be.
    Chapter 4
----
    C OME DAYLIGHT, OWEN Chantry saddled up and rode away. I watched him take a trail that went to the hills, and then I headed for the dapple.
    â€œDoby!” Pa’s tone wasn’t gentle like usual. “Where d’you think you’re goin’?”
    â€œTo the hills,” I said. “I want to see what he’s doin’ up there. What he’s goin’ to do.”
    â€œYou stay right where you are. There’s work to do, boy, if we spec to make a crop and get wood laid by for winter. We ain’t got no time to go