"I thought so," she continued, "by your feeling for your watch. You'll get out of the way of doing that soon."
His face blanched with fear that she might be predicting the truth. Would the time ever come when he should be used to sleeping in the open air?
The old woman turned a little, so that she could look at him.
"It's a handsome young fellow you are," she went on; "there's more than one house in town where they'd take you in on your looks—and tuck you up in bed, too, and keep you warm."
"Perhaps I'm better off here," he remarked, feeling that he was expected to say something.
"This isn't a bad hotel of ours, this isn't," she returned; "it's well ventilated, for one thing. Of course you can go to the station-house if you want. I don't. I've tried it, and I'd sooner sleep in the snow than in the station-house, with the creatures you meet there. This hotel of ours here keeps open all night; and it's on the European plan, I'm thinking—leastwise you can have anything you can pay for. When the owl-wagon is here, you can get a late supper—if you have the price of it. I haven't."
"Neither have I," he answered.
"Then there's two of us ready for an invite to breakfast," she responded, cheerily. "If any one asks us, it's no previous engagement will make us decline, I'm thinking."
He made no answer, for his heart sank as he looked into the future.
"Are you hungry now?" she asked.