“No?”
“I wear these old duds ’cause I ain’t got no others to wear. That’s why.”
She said it in an angry tone, and the red flowed into her cheeks again and her gray eyes flashed.
“I never did have nothin’ like other girls. Pop bought me overalls to wear when I was jest a kid; and that’s about all he ever did buy me. He thinks they air good enough. I haf to work like a boy; so why not dress like a boy? Huh?”
Tom had moved away. Somehow he felt a delicacy about listening to this frank avowal of the strange girl’s trials. But Ruth was sympathetic and she seized Min’s unwilling hand.
“Oh, my dear!” she cried under her breath. “I am sorry. Can’t you work and earn money to clothe yourself properly?”
“What’ll I do? The cattlemen won’t hire me, though I kin rope and hog-tie as well as any puncher they got. But they say a girl would make trouble for ’em. Nobody around here ever has money enough to hire a girl to do anything. I don’t know nothing about cookin’ or housework—‘cept to make flapjacks. I kin do camp cookin’ as good as pop; only I don’t use two griddles at a time same’s he does. But huntin’ parties won’t hire me. It sure is tough luck bein’ a girl.”
“Oh, my dear!” cried Ruth again. “I don’t believe that. There must be some way of improving your condition.”
“You show me how to earn some money, then,” cried Min. “I’ll dress as fancy as any of you. Oh! I was watchin’ you girls troop up from the train. And that other girl that went off with pop this mornin’. She gimme a look, now I tell you. I’d like to beat her up, I would!”
Ruth passed over this remark in silence. She was thinking. “Wait a moment, Min,” she begged, “I must speak to Mr. Cameron,” and she led Tom aside.