Johnson knitted his brows and muttered something under his breath which the Girl did not catch.
Again a shot was fired.
“Another thief crep’ into camp,” coldly observed the Girl almost simultaneously with the report.
Johnson winced.
“Poor devil!” he muttered. “But of course, as you say, he’s only a thief.”
In reply to which the Girl uttered words to the effect that she was glad he had been caught.
“Well, you’re right,” said Johnson, thoughtfully, after a short silence; then determinedly and in short jerky sentences, he went on: “I’ve been thinking that I must go—tear myself away. I have very important business at dawn—imperative business....”
The Girl, who now stood by the table folding up the white cloth cover, watched him out of the corner of her eye, take down his coat from the peg on the wall.
“Ever sample one o’ our mountain blizzards?” she asked as he slipped on his coat. “In five minutes you wouldn’t know where you was. Your important business would land you at the bottom of a canyon ’bout twenty feet from here.”
Johnson cleared his throat as if to speak but said nothing; whereupon the Girl continued: