"But really why is he going about here in the sunshine with that lantern in his hand?" Jardine pressed his horse forward, and spoke to the mountaineer. "What are you doing with that lantern, my man?"
The mountaineer turned his head slowly and looked up at Jardine with so sinister an expression of countenance that Ruth was moved to a subtle affright.
"Why does Mr. Jardine speak so—so discourteously to an inferior?" she said discontentedly.
"Because he is that kind of hairpin," said Frank lucidly.
"Well, it isn't nice; mamma always insists on special politeness to humble folk."
"You will have a harder hunt than Diogenes, if you look for mamma's precepts and practice in general action," said the loyal Frank.
There was something so incongruous with the inimical, tigerish glow in the mountaineer's eyes, and the youth and comeliness of his face, that his sharp retort seemed whetted to an edge.
"Doin' with it? Totin' it—can't ye see?"
Frank laughed out gaily, with an applausive cadence. "But why, partner? You understand that we are from the New Helvetia Springs—strangers—going around to see what we can see, and we are asking a million questions of anybody that will have patience to answer them. And we can't make out any good reason for you to carry that lantern out here on this sunlit mountain."
One might think it impossible to look at Frank's gay, pink, dimpled face and not be mollified. But the lowering, glum disaffection of the yokel's expression remained unmitigated. He continued silent, vouchsafing no response, while his eyes travelled from one to another of the faces of the group, successively studying their lineaments with no friendly result. There was a pause of embarrassment disproportioned to the trifling cause that provoked it. To break the awkwardness a few words were interchanged amongst the riders.