“I can’t hear you,” she called, above the noise of the surf.
He shuffled nearer. “Ain’t you goin’, too?”
“Out to the mines? No.”
“What y’ goin’ t’ do?” he asked.
The girl laughed. “Oh, just stay here and look at things.”
“What things?” The uneasy eye shot out a sudden alert beam.
She only smiled, as her own glance wandered to the wider vision.
“I got some ‘things’ to see after m’self,” he said in a surly tone. “Guess I ain’t got time to go to no gulch to-day.”
The girl fell a prey to misgiving lest this incident should end in dissuading Louis from leaving her at all. Was her insistence upon coming to result in defeat of the expedition?
The shifty man had drawn a trifle nearer still and lowered his voice. “What made yer land here?”