“They are; but your father told me to always dry my boots on my feet, otherwise they’d shrink out of shape.”
“That’s right, too; but you’d better take ’em off and wring out your socks or else put on dry ones.”
“You insist on my playing the invalid,” he complained, “and that makes me angry. When I’ve been over here a month you’ll find me a glutton for hardship. I shall be a bear, a grizzly, fearful to contemplate. My roar will affright you.”
She laughed like a child at his ferocity. “You’ll have to change a whole lot,” she said, and drew the blanket closer about his shoulders. “Just now your job is to keep warm and dry. I hope you won’t get lonesome over here.”
“I’m not going to open a book or read a newspaper. I’m not going to write to a single soul except you. I’ll be obliged to report to you, won’t I?”
“I’m not the Supervisor.”
“You’re the next thing to it,” he quickly retorted. “You’ve been my board of health from the very first. I should have fled for home long ago had it not been for you.”
Her eyes fell under his glance. “You’ll get pretty tired of things over here. It’s one of the lonesomest stations in the forest.”
“I’ll get lonesome for you; but not for the East.” This remark, or rather the tone in which it was uttered, brought another flush of consciousness to the girl’s face.
“What time is it now?” she asked, abruptly.