"You're bound to scrap, eh?" he grinned. "But it takes two to build a fight, and I positively refuse to fight with you."
He dragged the trunk back into the room, and came out carrying a great armful of masculine belongings. Two such trips he made, piling all his things onto a chair.
"There!" he said at last. "That end of the house belongs to you, little person. Now, get those wet things off before you catch a cold. Oh, wait a minute!"
He disappeared into the kitchen end of the house, and came back with a wash-basin and a pail of water.
"Your room is now ready, madam, an it please you." He bowed with mock dignity, and went back into the kitchen.
Hazel heard him rattling pots and dishes, whistling cheerfully the while. She closed the door, and busied herself with an inventory of the tenderfoot lady's trunk. In it she found everything needful for complete change, and a variety of garments to boot. Folded in the bottom of the trunk was a gray cloth skirt and a short blue silk kimono. There was a coat and skirt, too, of brown corduroy. But the feminine instinct asserted itself, and she laid out the gray skirt and the kimono.
For a dresser Roaring Bill had fashioned a wide shelf, and on it she found a toilet set complete—hand mirror, military brushes, and sundry articles, backed with silver and engraved with his initials. Perhaps with a spice of malice, she put on a few extra touches. There would be some small satisfaction in tantalizing Bill Wagstaff—even if she could not help feeling that it might be a dangerous game. And, thus arrayed in the weapons of her sex, she slipped on the kimono, and went into the living-room to the cheerful glow of the fire.
Bill remained busy in the kitchen. Dusk fell. The gleam of a light showed through a crack in the door. In the big room only the fire gave battle to the shadows, throwing a ruddy glow into the far corners. Presently Bill came in with a pair of candles which he set on the mantel above the fireplace.
"By Jove!" he said, looking down at her. "You look good enough to eat! I'm not a cannibal, however," he continued hastily, when Hazel flushed. She was not used to such plain speaking. "And supper's ready. Come on!"
The table was set. Moreover, to her surprise—and yet not so greatly to her surprise, for she was beginning to expect almost anything from this paradoxical young man—it was spread with linen, and the cutlery was silver, the dishes china, in contradistinction to the tinware of his camp outfit.