“When I cry,” said Katy tersely, “I cry because I feel like it. I wasn’t wapin’ over the snake that’d plan a death like that for anyone”—Katy waved toward the boulder—“and nayther was I wastin’ me tears over the fut of a kid bein’ jommed up a trifle.”
“Well, then, Katy,” asked Linda tremulously, “why were you crying?”
“Well, there’s times,” said Katy judicially, “when me spirits tell me I would be the better for lettin’ off a wee bit of stame, and one of them times havin’ arrived, I jist bowed me head to it, as is in accordance with the makings of me. Far be it from me to be flyin’ in the face of Providence and sayin’ I won’t, when all me interior disposhion says to me: ‘Ye will!’”
“And now, Linda,” said Peter, “can you tell us why you were crying?”
“Why, I think,” said Linda, “that Katy has explained sufficiently for both of us. It was merely time for us to howl after such fearful nerve strain, so we howled.”
“Well, that’s all right,” said Peter. “Now I’ll tell you something. If you had gone away in that ambulance to an anesthetic and an operation, no wildcat that ever indulged in a hunger hunt through this canyon could have put up a howl equal to the one that I would have sent up.”
“Peter,” said Linda, “there is nothing funny about this; it’s no tame for jest. But do men have nerves? Would you really?”
“Of course I would,” said Peter.
“No, you wouldn’t,” contradicted Linda. “You just say that because you want to comfort us for having broken down, instead of trying to tease us as most men would.”
“He would, too!” said Katy, starting to the Bear-cat with a load of utensils. “Now come on; let’s go home and be gettin’ claned up and ready for what’s goin’ to happen to us. Will they be jailin’ us, belike, Miss Linda?”