giving you all this trouble by my intrusion, for I was
quite willing to stay at the store yonder. Indeed," he added, with
a burst of frankness quite as sincere as her own, "if you think your
father will not be offended, I would gladly go there now."

If he still believed in her coquetry and vanity, he would have been
undeceived and crushed by the equal and sincere frankness with which she
met this ungallant speech.

"No! I reckon he wouldn't care, if you'd be as comf'ble and fit for
to-morrow. But ye WOULDN'T," she said reflectively. "The boys thar
sit up late over euchre, and swear a heap, and Simpson, who'd sleep
alongside of ye, snores pow'ful, I've heard. Aunty Stanton kin do her
level at that, too, and they say"--with a laugh--"that I kin, too, but
you're away off in that corner, and it won't reach you. So, takin' it
all, by the large, you'd better stay whar ye are. We wimmen, that is,
the most of us, will be off and away down to Rattlesnake Bar shoppin'
afore sun up, so ye'll sleep ez long ez ye want to, and find yer
breakfast ready when ye wake. So I'll jest set to and get ye some
supper, and ye kin tell me all the doin's in Sacramento and 'Frisco
while I'm workin'."

In spite of her unconscious rebuff to his own vanity, Hemmingway felt a
sense of relief and less constraint in his relations to this decidedly
provincial hostess.

"Can I help you in any way?" he asked eagerly.

"Well, ye MIGHT bring me an armful o' wood from the pile under the
alders, ef ye ain't afraid o' dirtyin' your coat," she said tentatively.

Mr. Hemmingway was not afraid; he declared himself delighted. He brought
a generous armful of small cut willow boughs, and deposited them before
a small stove, which seemed a temporary substitute for the usual large
adobe chimney that generally occupied the entire gable of a miner's
cabin. An elbow and short length of stovepipe carried the smoke through
the cabin side. But he also noticed that his fair companion had used
the interval to put on a pair of white cuffs and a collar. However, she
brushed the green moss from his sleeve with some toweling, and although
this operation brought her so near to him that her breath--as soft and
warm as the southwest trades--stirred his hair, it was evident that this
contiguity was only frontier familiarity, as far removed from conscious
coquetry as it was, perhaps, from educated delicacy.

"The boys gin'rally kem to take up enough wood for me to begin with,"