sconcerted
Jean.

"Beg pardon--miss," he floundered. "Didn't expect, to see a--girl....
I'm sort of lost--lookin' for the Rim--an' thought I'd find a sheep
herder who'd show me. I can't savvy this boy's lingo."

While he spoke it seemed to him an intentness of expression, a strain
relaxed from her face. A faint suggestion of hostility likewise
disappeared. Jean was not even sure that he had caught it, but there
had been something that now was gone.

"Shore I'll be glad to show y'u," she said.

"Thanks, miss. Reckon I can breathe easy now," he replied,

"It's a long ride from San Diego. Hot an' dusty! I'm pretty tired.
An' maybe this woods isn't good medicine to achin' eyes!"

"San Diego! Y'u're from the coast?"

"Yes."

Jean had doffed his sombrero at sight of her and he still held it,
rather deferentially, perhaps. It seemed to attract her attention.

"Put on y'ur hat, stranger.... Shore I can't recollect when any man
bared his haid to me." She uttered a little laugh in which surprise
and frankness mingled with a tint of bitterness.

Jean sat down with his back to a pine, and, laying the sombrero by his
side, he looked full at her, conscious of a singular eagerness, as if
he wanted to verify by close scrutiny a first hasty impression. If
there had been an instinct in his meeting with Colter, there was more
in this. The girl half sat, half leaned against a log, with the shiny
little carbine across her knees. She had a level, curious gaze upon
him, and Jean had never met one just like it. Her eyes were rather a
wide oval in shape, clear and steady, with shadows of thought in their
amber-brown depths. They seemed to look through Jean, and his gaze
dropped first. Then it was he saw her ragged homespun skirt and a few
inches of brown, bare ankles, strong and round, and crude worn-out
moccasins that failed to hide the shapeliness, of her feet. Suddenly
she drew back her stockingless ankles and ill-shod little feet. When
Jean lifted his gaze again he found her face half averted and a stain
of red in the gold tan of her cheek. That touch of embarrassment
somehow removed her from this strong, raw, wild woodland setting. It
changed her poise. It detracted from the curious, unabashed, almost
bold, look that he had encountered in her eyes.

"Reckon you're from Texas," said Jean, presently.

"Shore am," she drawled. She had a lazy Southern voice, pleasant to
hear. "How'd y'u-all guess that?"

"A