Peter nodded. "If I can ever find the way."
"You're one of the new detectives?"
"Detective!" Peter laughed. "No. Not that I'm aware. I'm the new superintendent and forester."
"Oh!"
The girl was visibly impressed, but a tiny frown puckered her brow.
"What's a forester?" she asked.
"A fellow who looks after the forests."
"The forests don't need any lookin' after out here in the barrens. They just grow."
"I'm going to teach them to grow better."
The girl looked at him for a long moment of suspicion. She had taken off her hat and the ruddy sunlight behind her made a golden halo all about her head. Her hands he had noted were small, the fingers slender. Her nose was well shaped, her nostrils wide, the angle of her jaw firmly modeled and her slender figure beneath the absurd garments revealed both strength and grace. But he did not dare to stare at her too hard or to question her as to her garments. For all that Peter knew it might be the custom of Burlington County for women to wear blue denim trousers.