“Better’d let me take you home.”
“Thank you,” she said. “I know my way home.”
“It ain’t no place for you out here. Them from the mill is all right, but these new miners, they go back ’n forwards singing and fighting. They’d scare you most to death ... or worse.”
She was looking off into the valley and made no reply.
“Better’d let me take you home.”
“Please,” she said, “I don’t wish to be taken home.”
“Ain’t you got to go home?”
To this her only answer was an exasperated shrug of the shoulders. All he could see of her was the expression of her back and it was so unfriendly that it took everything out of him but the doggedness. He waited until it was evident she did not mean to speak again. Then he walked about in a fumble of perplexity and at length threw himself on the grass and comfortably lighted his pipe.
After a while she spoke without turning her head.
“Are you there for the night?”