Bud took off his hat and clanked over to the counter and asked if there was any mail for Bud Birnie—Robert Wallace Birnie.
The girl looked at him again and smiled, and turned to shuffle a handful of letters. Bud employed the time in trying to guess just what she meant by that smile.
It was not really a smile, he decided, but the beginning of one. And if that were the beginning, he would very much like to know what the whole smile would mean. The beginning hinted at things. It was as if she doubted the reality of the name he gave, and meant to conceal her doubt, or had heard something amusing about him, or wished to be friends with him, or was secretly timorous and trying to appear merely indifferent. Or perhaps——
She replaced the letters and turned, and rested her hands on the counter. She looked at him and again her lips turned at the corners in that faint, enigmatical beginning of a smile.
“There isn't a thing,” she said. “The mail comes this noon again. Do you want yours sent out to any of the outfits? Or shall I just hold it?”
“Just hold it, when there is any. At least, until I see whether I land a job here. I wonder where I could find the boss?” Bud was glancing often at her hands. For a ranch girl her hands were soft and white, but her fingers were a bit too stubby and her nails were too round and flat.
“Uncle Dave will be home at noon. He's out in the meadow with the boys. You might sit down and wait.”
Bud looked at his watch. Sitting down and waiting for four hours did not appeal to him, even supposing the girl would keep him company. But he lingered awhile, leaning with his elbows on the counter near her; and by those obscure little conversational trails known to youth, he progressed considerably in his acquaintance with the girl and made her smile often without once feeling quite certain that he knew what was in her mind.
He discovered that her name was Honora Krause, and that she was called Honey “for short.” Her father had been Dutch and her mother a Yankee, and she lived with her uncle, Dave Truman, who owned Little Lost ranch, and took care of the mail for him, and attended to the store—which was nothing more than a supply depot kept for the accommodation of the neighbors. The store, she said, was in the next room.
Bud asked her what Little Lost meant, and she replied that she did not know, but that it might have something to do with Sunk Creek losing itself in The Sinks. There was a Little Lost river, farther across the mountains, she said, but it did not run through Little Lost ranch, nor come anywhere near it.