grows hair.
But I'll shave and paint myself red, and hunt for feathers, if that's
what you want."

Her sobbing grew less violent. Despite his ferocious aspect, no fear
could remain in her heart at sight of that distressed countenance, at
sound of those conciliatory tones. Willock, observing that the tempest
was abating, continued in his most appealing manner:

"I'm going to do whatever you say, honey, and you're going to be the
queen of the cove. Ain't you never been lonesome amongst all them red
devils? Ain't you missed your poor mammy as died crossing the plains?
It was me that buried her. Ain't you never knowed how it felt to want
to lay your head on somebody's shoulder and slip your little arms about
his neck, and go to sleep like an angel whatever was happening around?
I guess SO! Well, that's me, too. Here I've been for two long year,
never seeing nothing but wild animals or prowling savages till the last
few months when a settler comes to them mountains seven mile to the
southwest. Looked like I'd die, sometimes, just having myself to
entertain."

"You lonesome, too?" said the girl, looking up incredulously. She drew
a step nearer, a wistful light in her dark eyes.

The man stretched out his arms and dropped them to his side, heavily.
"Like that," he cried--"just emptiness!"

"I stay," she said simply. "All time, want my own people; all time,
Red Feather say some day take me to white people--want to go, all time.
But Red Feather never tell me 'BIG HAIR.' Didn't know what it was I
was looking for--never thought it would be something like you."

"But you ain't afraid now, are you, little one?"

She shook her head, and drawing nearer, seated herself on the ground
before the dugout. "You LOOK Big Hair," she explained sedately, "but
your speech is talk of weak squaw."

Somewhat disconcerted by these words, Willock sat down opposite her,
and resumed his pipe as if to assert his sex. "I seem weak to you," he
explained, "because I love you, child, and want to make friends with
you. But let me meet a big man--well, you'd see, then!" He looked so
ferocious as he uttered these words, that she started up like a
frightened quail, grasping her blanket about her.

"No, no, honey," he cooed abjectly, "I wouldn't hurt a fly. Me, I was
always a byword amongst my pards. They'd say, 'There goes Brick
Willock, what never harmed nobody.' When they kept me in at school I
never clumb out the window, and it wa