ye'd bin at all decent and takin',
we'd hev had kempany that helped, instead of laggin' on yere alone!"

"What did ye bring me for?" retorted the girl shrilly. "I might hev
stayed with Aunt Marty. I wasn't hankerin' to come."

"Bring ye for?" repeated her father contemptuously; "I reckoned ye might
he o' some account here, whar wimmin folks is skeerce, in the way o'
helpin',--and mebbe gettin' yer married to some likely feller. Mighty
much chance o' that, with yer yaller face and skin and bones."

"Ye can't blame me for takin' arter you, dad," she said, with a shrill
laugh, but no other resentment of his brutality.

"Ye want somebody to take arter you--with a club," he retorted angrily.
"Ye hear! Wot's that ye're doin' now?"

She had risen and walked to the tail of the wagon. "Goin' to get out and
walk. I'm tired o' bein' jawed at."

She jumped into the road. The act was neither indignant nor vengeful;
the frequency of such scenes had blunted their sting. She was probably
"tired" of the quarrel, and ended it rudely. Her father, however, let
fly a Parthian arrow.

"Ye needn't think I'm goin' to wait for ye, ez I hev! Ye've got to keep
tetch with the team, or get left. And a good riddance of bad rubbidge."

In reply the girl dived into the underwood beside the trail, picked a
wild berry or two, stripped a wand of young hazel she had broken off,
and switching it at her side, skipped along on the outskirts of the
wood and ambled after the wagon. Seen in the full, merciless glare of a
Californian sky, she justified her father's description; thin and bony,
her lank frame outstripped the body of her ragged calico dress, which
was only kept on her shoulders by straps,--possibly her father's
cast-off braces. A boy's soft felt hat covered her head, and shadowed
her only notable feature, a pair of large dark eyes, looking larger for
the hollow temples which narrowed the frame in which they were set.

So long as the wagon crawled up the ascent the girl knew she could
easily keep up with it, or even distance the tired horses. She made one
or two incursions into the wood, returning like an animal from quest of
food, with something in her mouth, which she was tentatively chewing,
and once only with some inedible mandrono berries, plucked solely for
their brilliant coloring. It was very hot and singularly close; the
higher current of air had subsided, and, looking up, a singular haze
seemed to have taken its place between the