“Who said you was a prairie-flower? Did I? Who’s talking about prairie-flowers—”
He stopped suddenly, turned round at the sound of a footstep behind him, and saw, standing in a doorway leading to another room, a man who was digging his knuckles into his eyes and stifling a yawn. He was a refined-looking stripling of not more than twenty-four, not tall, but well-made, and with an air of breeding, intensified rather than hidden by his rough clothes.
“Je-rick-ety! How long have I slept?” he said, blinking at the two beside the fire. “How long?” he added, with a flutter of anxiety in his tone.
“I said I’d wake you,” said the girl, coming forward. “You needn’t have worried.”
“I don’t worry,” answered the young man. “I dreamed myself awake, I suppose. I got dreaming of redcoats and U. S. marshals, and an ambush in the Barfleur Coulée, and—” He saw a secret, warning gesture from the girl, and laughed, then turned to Abe and looked him in the face. “Oh, I know him! Abe Hawley’s all O.K.—I’ve seen him over at Dingan’s Drive. Honor among rogues. We’re all in it. How goes it—all right?” he added, carelessly, to Hawley, and took a step forward, as though to shake hands. Seeing the forbidding look by which he was met, however, he turned to the girl again, as Hawley muttered something they could not hear.
“What time is it?” he asked.
“It’s nine o’clock,” answered the girl, her eyes watching his every movement, her face alive.
“Then the moon’s up almost?”
“It’ll be up in an hour.”
“Jerickety! Then I’ve got to get ready.” He turned to the other room again and entered.