“You can see almost anything in a woman’s eye if your imagination is working right,” the doctor told him, rather crabbedly.
“You don’t need to believe it if you don’t want to,” returned Smith, somewhat offended, “but I tell you that girl’d shoot a man in a minute if he got too fresh!”
“I believe you’re right about that, Smith,” agreed the doctor, “so let’s you and I be careful that we don’t get too fresh.”
Smith said no more, but he kept turning his eye upon the doctor as he got his wagon ready to set off on his return, with a good deal of unfriendliness in it. Evidently it had come into his mind only then that Dr. Slavens was assuming a sort of proprietary air around Agnes.
With his foot on the brake and his lines drawn up, Smith looked down and addressed her.
“Well, I don’t suppose you’ll be back on the river for some time?” 337
“I expect it will be a long time,” she replied, evading exposition of her plans.
“I’ll keep my eye on the place for you, and see that them fellers don’t cut down your timber,” he offered.
She thanked him.
“When you come over that way, take a look at that sign on the front of my store,” said Smith, giving her a significant, intimate glance. “The more you see that name in print the better you like it.”