He reached for it. "My! it's pretty! Wish you'd make me a watch-fob like that."
She flushed and dimpled. "I'd like to," she said.
"I'll wear it as an amulet." He gave her back the belt, and their hands touched.
She started nervously.
"Why, Miss Marylyn!" he said gently. "You afraid of me?"
"No." It was whispered.
"Well, you mustn't be." His tone was one that might have been used to a child. "Since I rode here a month ago, I've thought of you folks a lot. I'd like to do a real good turn for you. Perhaps it's because you girls seem so lonely——"
"We're not lonely," she declared. "The Fort's near, and we can hear the band. And pa says there'll be three or four steamers go by next summer."
The storekeeper mentally kicked himself. "The idea of suggesting a thing like that," he growled inwardly, "when she hadn't even thought of it! John Lounsbury, you've got about as much sense as a fool mud-hen."
"And," went on Marylyn, "there's the ladies at Fort Brannon. If pa——" She hesitated.