e.

"Tell me," said Dallas, firmly.

Marylyn looked up. "You'll hate me if I do," she faltered.

The elder girl laughed fondly. "As if I could!"

"You promise not to tell pa?"

"Course, I promise."

"Oh, Dallas!" She buried her face in her hands. "It's--it's that I--I
like him! _I like him!_"

A moment of perplexity. Then, gradually, it dawned upon the elder girl
whom the other meant. In very surprise her arms loosened their hold.

"You _do_ hate me," Marylyn said plaintively.

"No, honey, no--why should I hate you?" Her words were earnest. But her
voice--something had changed it. And she felt a strange hurt, a vague
hurt that seemed to have no cause.

Marylyn raised herself on an elbow. "He liked me--once," she said. "He
showed it, just as _plain_. It was right here, that day the cattle went
by."

Dallas got up. She had begun to tremble visibly; her breath was coming
short, as if she had been running.

But the younger girl did not notice. "He stayed away so long," she went
on. "Then, to-day when he came--you remember, Dallas,--he just said a
word or two to me, and laughed at me because I was afraid. And--and I
saw that I was wrong, and I--I saw--he liked--_you_."

"_Me!_" Dallas turned. She felt the blood come driving into her face.
She felt that strange hurt ease--and go in a rush of joyful feeling.
Then, she understood the cause of it--and why she had trembled--why that
day had been the happiest of her life.

Of a sudden she became conscious that Marylyn's eyes were upon her with
a look of pathetic reproach. She began to laugh.

"Nonsense! honey," she said. "Don't be silly! Me! Why, he'd never like a
great big gawk like me!"

"But--but----"

"Me, with my red hair--you know it is kinda red--and my face, sunburned
as a' Indian--hands all calloused like--like a man's." She turned back
to the dusk through the window. "Oh, no, not me."

"But you looked so funny just now."

"Did I? Did I?" Dallas stammered out her reason: "Well--well, that was
because--because I thought you was going to say it was a soldier." She
laughed--nervously. "But it was Mr. Lounsbury you meant, honey, wasn't
it?"

The suspicion that had troubled the mind of the younger girl was
allayed. "Why, Dallas, how could you think such a thing about me! Like a
soldier? My, no! It was Mr. Lounsbury--but he don't like me."

She got up and went to the foot of her father's bunk. When she
reappeared, she was carrying the soap-box that h