"I like a wood, and I've got it. I feel safe when there are trees round me. Why's that, do you suppose?"
"I do not know. My little girl is afraid to sit in a wood alone. She says there are things watching her. She likes the open."
"That's so that she can run. I'd rather have trees for shelter. You can slip from one to the other, and what they fling doesn't hit you if you are quick. There's less chance for you running. You'll be struck or caught. It's silly, that. She should take shelter when she can, and keep quiet; then they'll pass by, perhaps, without seeing you."
"I'll be sure to tell her. But—but what are we talking about? Who would try to catch her? What need to—what were we talking about?"
"Eh? I was saying I've trees before and behind my house. My grandfather planted them. We've been here for a long while, but I'm the last of us."
Edward Webb brushed his forehead: he blinked. He had an impression that, made drowsy by the strong air of the mountains, he had been near falling asleep in the glow of the fire.
"It's sad for a family to die out," he said; and the remark sounded foolishly in his ears.
"Alexander's a good lad," she said, so that he understood the sequence of her thought.
"He is, he is. But one is afraid for him."
"Yes, there's trouble—a thick block of trouble on his way."