When be finished, he rose, picking up the old
flint-lock.
"Won't ye stay and hev some dinner?,' asked the old woman.
"No, thank you."
Come ag'in," she said, cordially, adding the mountaineer's farewell,
"I wish ye well."
"Thank you, I will. Good-day."
As he passed the girl he paused a moment and dropped the paper
into her lap. It was a rude sketch of their first meeting, the bull
coming at him like a tornado. The color came to her face, and
when Clayton turned the corner of the house he heard her
laughing.
"What you laughin' at, Easter?" asked the mother, stopping her
work and looking around.
For answer the girl rose and walked into the house, hiding the
paper in her bosom. The old woman watched her narrowly.
I never seed ye afeard of a man afore," she said to herself. "No, nur
so tickled 'bout one, nother. Well, he air as accommodatin' a feller
as I ever see, ef he air a furriner. But he was a fool to swop his gun
fer hem."
V
THEREAFTER Clayton saw the girl whenever possible. If she
came to the camp, he walked up the mountain with her. No idle
day passed that he did not visit the cabin, and it was not long
before he found himself strangely interested. Her beauty and
fearlessness had drawn him at first; her indifference and stolidity
had piqued him; and now the shyness that displaced these was
inconsistent and puzzling.
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