With frank delight in the astonishing vision, Jerry Henderson stood there, his feet well apart, his pack still on his shoulders and his lips parted in a smile of greeting and friendliness.
"Howdy," he said, but the girl remained motionless, vouchsafing no response.
"I'm a stranger in these parts," he volunteered easily, using the vernacular of the hills, "and I've strayed off my course. I was aiming to go to Lone Stacy's dwelling-house."
Still she remained statuesque and voiceless, so the man went on: "Can you set me right? There seems to be a sort of a path here. Does it lead anywhere in particular?"
He took a step nearer and eased his pack to the ground among the briars of the blackberry bushes.
Abruptly, as if to bar his threatened progress, Blossom moved a little to the side, obstructing the path. Into her eyes leaped a flame of Amazonian hostility and her hands clenched themselves tautly at her sides. Her lips parted and from her throat came a long, mellow cry not unlike the yodle of the Tyrol. It echoed through the timber and died away—and again she stood confronting him—wordless!
"I didn't mean to startle you," he declared reassuringly, "I only wanted information."
Again the far-carrying but musical shout was sent through the quiet of the forest—his only answer.
"Since you won't answer my questions," said Jerry Henderson, irritated into capriciousness, "I think I'll see for myself where this trail leads."
Instantly, then, she planted herself before him, with a violently heaving bosom and a wrathful quivering of her delicate nostrils, Her challenge broke tensely from her lips with a note of unyielding defiance.