With a heart thumping in a most disconcerting manner, the young man, who “never had been in love and never would be in love,” stooped to pick it up.
“Queer now,” he thought, as he gazed long at the beautiful face that smiled up at him. “Queer now, isn’t it?”
A wind, rising with the setting of the sun and the cool rush of the waters, was all the reply that he heard, and feeling happier than he had in many a day, he returned to his camp.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
THE PRETEND-GAME
The sun had set, but the western sky above the mountains was a glory of radiant colors when Ken leaped upon the low porch in front of a small log cabin and knocked eagerly upon the closed door. Instantly it was opened, and Josephine Bayley, in a blue bungalow apron, appeared. Her face gladdened at sight of the small lad who was holding up a string of glistening fish.
“Oh, Ken, did you catch those for me?” The young woman took the proffered gift and held it up in the soft crimson light that reflected back from the other side of the cañon.
“No’m, teacher, ’twasn’t me, though how I do wish it had been! It was-er— Oh, yes, Rattlesnake Sam caught them, and he said he’d like me to dress them after you’d seen how pretty they are with their scales on.” For one panicky moment the small boy had forgotten his friend’s assumed name, and he had been on the verge of saying “Mr. Edrington.” What a narrow escape that had been! For a second he was hardly conscious that Miss Bayley was speaking, then he realized that she was asking him if the “old gentleman” had liked the book she had loaned him. “Oh, yes’m, teacher, Miss Bayley. Rattlesnake Sam, he said ‘Great!’ when he saw it, and—and he told me he’d like the snake book, too, if you’d loan it to him. I’m going up to his camp next Saturday, so I could pack it along then if you could spare it.”
The girl-teacher laughed. “I can spare it all right until next spring. Since all of the snakes have hibernated for the winter, I can’t get near enough to one to see if he looks like his picture.” Then, at the small boy’s suggestion, she gave him the string of trout and he at once began, in a manner that showed his skill, to prepare them for the frying-pan. “Won’t you stay and share them with me, Ken?” the girl-teacher asked, really hoping that he would accept.
“Oh, no’m, thank you, I couldn’t. Dixie will be expecting me back, and—and—we’re sort of having trouble over at our house.”
“Ken! Trouble?” anxiously. “Why didn’t you tell me this afternoon and I would have gone to Dixie at once. I meant to ask you after school why my little leader-of-songs was absent, but you disappeared so quickly after the bell for dismissal rang that I could not, and then I looked for Carol, and saw that she and Jimmy-Boy were running for home as fast as his chubby legs could go. Tell me, dear, what is wrong? Can I help?”