“I suppose you know the forfeit of putting on a gentleman's hat?”
Apparently she did, for she suddenly made a warning gesture, and said, “Not here! It would be a bigger forfeit than you'd keer fo'.” Before he could reply she turned aside as if quite innocently, and passed into the shade of a fringe of buckeyes. He followed quickly. “I didn't mean that,” she said; but in the mean time he had kissed the pink tip of her ear under its brown coils. He was, nevertheless, somewhat discomfited by her undisturbed manner and serene face. “Ye don't seem to mind bein' shot at,” she said, with an odd smile, “but it won't do for you to kalkilate that EVERYBODY shoots as keerfully as uncle Harry.”
“I don't understand,” he replied, struck by her manner.
“Ye ain't very complimentary, or you'd allow that other folks might be wantin' what you took just now, and might consider you was poachin',” she returned gravely. “My best and strongest holt among those men is that uncle Harry would kill the first one who tried anything like that on—and they know it. That's how I get all the liberty I want here, and can come and go alone as I like.”
Brice's face flushed quickly with genuine shame and remorse. “Do forgive me,” he said hurriedly. “I didn't think—I'm a brute and a fool!”
“Uncle Harry allowed you was either drunk or a born idiot when you was promenadin' into the valley just now,” she said, with a smile.
“And what did you think?” he asked a little uneasily.
“I thought you didn't look like a drinkin' man,” she answered audaciously.
Brice bit his lip and walked on silently, at which she cast a sidelong glance under her widely spaced heavy lashes and said demurely, “I thought last night it was mighty good for you to stand up for your frien' Yuba Bill, and then, after ye knew who I was, to let the folks see you kinder cottoned to me too. Not in the style o' that land-grabber Heckshill, nor that peart newspaper man, neither. Of course I gave them as good as they sent,” she went on, with a little laugh, but Brice could see that her sensitive lip in profile had the tremulous and resentful curve of one who was accustomed to slight and annoyance. Was it possible that this reckless, self-contained girl felt her position keenly?
“I am proud to have your good opinion,” he said, with a certain respect mingled with his admiring glance, “even if I have not your uncle's.”