Simon was stooping down with his eyes on a level with Eliza's.
"Say, Eliza," he asked, "would you like to be my little girl?"
"Yes," quoth Eliza.
"And come and live with me all the time?"
"Yes!" and she put out a little hand and touched his face.
"She won't be no great expense to you," said Christie.
Simon stood up and cast a significant glance about him.
"I guess if I let them prospectors in on my land," he said, "there won't be no great call for economizing!"
The two men stood a moment facing each other with the same half-defiant, half-puzzled look they had exchanged at that other meeting, not so long ago. Christie was the first to break the silence.
"There wa' n't never much love lost between Eliza and me," he remarked, as if pursuing a train of thought that had been interrupted. "After the two boys died of the shakes, down in the Missouri Bottoms, both in one week, I kind o' lost my interest in kids. But I'd like to know she was in better hands than mine, for her mother's sake."