There was no answer.
CHAPTER VI. KING MIDAS AND NAPOLEON.
As directed, Sheldon went back down the knoll until he stood near a tumble-down shanty there, some fifty or sixty feet from the sturdy log house, from which he did not remove his eyes. As he went the door opened a very little, just enough for a pair of alert and vigilant eyes to watch him.
When he stopped he was prepared to see a round, brown arm slip out to retrieve the fallen bearskin. But instead the door opened quickly, there stepped out what at first glance seemed to be a boy clad in man’s trousers, boots, and terribly torn and patched blue shirt. But her hair lay in two loosely plaited braids across her shoulders, and hardly the second glance was needed to assure him that here was no boy, but she who had fled before him.
In coming out the door had opened just far enough for her to pass out, then had been closed so quickly that he had had no glimpse of the cabin’s interior. She stood still, a hand upon the latch behind her, facing him.
Sheldon raised his hand to lift his hat, remembered and said quietly:
“Good morning.”
“Good morning,” she repeated after him.
He was near enough to guess something of what lay in her eyes. Certainly a strange sort of curiosity underlay her penetrating gaze which seemed in all frankness to search deeply for all that a long look could tell her.
And, it seemed to him, under this look lay another that hinted to him that she’d whirl, jerk the door open, and disappear in a flash if he so much as took a step forward. So he moved back another pace or two, to reassure her, leaning against a fragment of wall.