“I don’t know any other place to go.”
Her sober face told that she spoke the gaunt truth, and that she dreaded the thought of returning to the house whence she had come. An awkward pause followed.
“Well, you may not get there to-night,” the man declared. “I doubt if I can find my way out of this mess of rocks before daylight, and you certainly can’t go scrambling around on that bad foot. You’ll have to come to my camp now and get bandaged up.”
The auburn brows drew together in another frown, and the eyes under them peered toward him in open suspicion.
“I ain’t so sure about that,” she asserted. “I can git home some way alone, if I have to, and I don’t figger to stay up here all night. Who are you?”
“Oh, just a rambling camper. But don’t be silly. I’m not a skunk. I’ll gladly take you home if it’s possible and sensible, but until you’re in condition to travel it’s neither. Now you need a bandage on that arm, some hot water on the ankle, and—are you hungry?”
“I’m ’most starved,” she admitted. “I got mad and run away this mornin’, and I ain’t et since breakfast.”
“Oho! I’m afraid you’re a temperamental little redbird. Well, come on down to camp and I’ll feed you bacon and beans—and hot coffee, lots of it. How’s that?”
“Sounds awful good. I guess you’re all right. You go ’long and show the way.”
She turned about on her stone. The movement disclosed a long rent in the faded dress, running from arm to waist, through which glowed pink flesh. Her skirt, too, was badly ripped. The man behind the light switched it from her to the formidable mass of stones ahead.