"I don't know quite where, but somewhere between this place and where the trail forks for Williams Creek."
Whilst the girl had been speaking her companion had shifted his position, so that he now stood with his back to the light, so that no casual observer would have noticed even if his face should turn white and his hand shake.
"What is your friend like, and what was the matter with him, Lilla?" asked the colonel after a while, with a certain show of carelessness, dropping out his words disjointedly between his efforts to light a cigar.
"Well, I can hardly tell you, he lies down all the time. He is too weak to stand up, but he looks a fine man, tall and big—oh, very big, and hair like a Deutscher's, and blue eyes, more blue, I think, than mine;" and she opened those pretty orbs very wide to let her questioner see how very blue eyes would have to be to be bluer than her own.
"Is that so, and Lilla is half in love with him already? Oh, Lilla, Lilla! And when will this beautiful person be well again?"
"Don't talk foolishness," replied the girl, blushing furiously. "How could I love a man who has the 'jim-jams?'"
"The 'jim-jams!' What! from drink?"
"I don't know. But there, there's the music, come along;" and once more Lilla bore away the best waltzer in Antler to the tune of some slow rhythmical German air.
During the dance the girl said nothing, and after it was over she left her partner for someone else (mind you, dancing meant business for Lilla); but towards the end of the evening she sought out the colonel again, and leading him on one side, said: