“Got any penny?”
“No.”
“Got any slate pencil?”
“No.”
“Ain't got any pins nor nuthin'? You kin go in for a pin.”
But Florry had none of childhood's fluctuating currency with her, having, so to speak, no pockets.
“Well,” said Johnny, brightening up, “ye kin go in for luv.”
The child clipped him with her small arms and smiled, and, Johnny leading the way, they crept on all fours through the thick ferns until they paused before a deep fissure in the soil half overgrown with bramble. In its depths they could hear the monotonous trickle of water. It was really the source of the spring that afterwards reappeared fifty yards nearer the road, and trickled into an unfailing pool known as the Burnt Spring, from the brown color of the surrounding bracken. It was the water supply of the ranch, and the reason for Mr. Medliker's original selection of that site. Johnny lingered for an instant, looked carefully around, and then lowered himself into the fissure. A moment later he reached up his arms to Florry, lowered her also, and both disappeared from view. Yet from time to time their voices came faintly from below—with the gurgle of water—as of festive gnomes at play.
At the end of ten minutes they reappeared, a little muddy, a little bedraggled, but flushed and happy. There were two pink spots on Florry's cheeks, and she clasped something tightly in her little red fist.
“There,” said Johnny, when they were seated in the straw again, “now mind you don't tell.”