He lifted his eyebrows. And then, her suspicion clear to him, his gravity departed the way Terry's dimple had gone and he put back his head and laughed. Laughed while the girl with deepening color and darkening eyes looked at him indignantly.
"Think I did that on purpose?" he cried in vast good nature. "That I was spying on you? That I waited until you started to climb up here and that then I popped my head up just at the same time? All on purpose?"
"That's just exactly what I do think!" Terry told him hotly. "You—you big smarty! Everywhere I go, have you got to keep showing up?"
"I'll tell you something," said Steve. "If I had climbed up here just to give you a little surprise party; if I had known you were there and that I could have poked my head up just as you did yours—know what I would have done?"
"What?" Terry in her curiosity condescended to ask.
"I'd have kissed the prettiest girl I ever saw!" he chuckled. "Honest to grandma! That's just what I'd have done. As it was, you half scared me out of my wits; I came as close as you please to going over backward and breaking my neck."
"Not as close as I please. And as for kissing me, Long Steve Packard, you just try that on sometime when you want your face slapped good and hard and a bullet pumped into you besides!"
"Mean it?" grinned Steve.
"I most certainly do," she retorted emphatically.
"Offered merely as information?" he wanted to know. "Or as a dare? Or an invitation?"