"Now I have scare you!" said Nahnya remorsefully. "You think I mus' be bad, because others think I am so!"
"No," said Kitty, "it is my own ignorance that I am scared of. I don't know anything. I don't know what to say."
"Say not'ing!" cried Nahnya, bending a quick look of contrite affection on her. "Me, I talk too much! Always I want talk to some one who is like me, and I am near crazy with talk that I cannot speak. My people, they are good people, but they do not know me. My mot'er not know me. I am strange to her. She is scare of me. Always I think if I could be friends with a white woman, we could talk. And to-day the river bring you to me, so I think it is like magic. And my tongue, she shoot the rapids of talk! I am sorry I scare you!"
"You don't scare me a bit!" protested Kitty. "I like to have you talk to me. I'm talking to you, too. Tell me about the white man," she said shyly, "the one you liked."
Nahnya was startled. For an instant the old walled look darkened her face. "I not say I like any white man," she said quickly. "I not want any man."
Kitty hung her head a little. "That's what we say," she murmured with a burst of shy candour; "but how true is it?"
The dark fled out of Nahnya's face. She turned a pair of wondrously soft eyes on Kitty. "You are lonely up here!" she said. "I know what lonely is!"
Kitty's eyes grew large and bright with tears. She nodded. "I wanted a friend, too," she said very low. "Some one to talk to like you. The boys are good to me, but they treat me like a baby. I wanted a woman friend. I haven't talked to a woman in a year and a half."
Nahnya sprang to her knees, and unconsciously clasping her hands to her breast, leaned toward Kitty. "I will be your friend—always!" she said with trembling eagerness. "If you want me," she added with wistful humility.
Kitty's answer was to fling her arms around Nahnya's neck.