If she regarded him with fixed intentness, no less did the man stare at her. There was every sign of hasty dressing; she must have drawn on the first garments falling to her hurrying hands. The boots were unquestionably many sizes too large; trousers and shirt were monstrously ill-fitting. And, even so, the amazing thing was that she was most undeniably pretty. And, burned as she was from the sun, she was not an Indian. Her hair was a sunkissed brown; her eyes, he fancied, were gray.
“I am sorry,” said Sheldon after a considerable silence, “that I frightened you just now.”
Her gaze did not waver, lost nothing of its steady, searching intentness. He could see no change of expression upon her slightly parted lips. She offered no remark to his, but stood waiting.
“I think,” he went on in a little, putting all of the friendliness he could manage into his voice, “that I was at first startled as much as you. I’d hardly expected to stumble upon a girl here, you know!”
If she did know she didn’t take the trouble to tell him that she did. There was something positively disconcerting in the scrutiny to which she so openly subjected him.
“You see,” he continued his monologue stoutly, determined to overlook any little idiosyncrasies, “it was a surprise to me to see your tracks, in the first place. And then to come upon you like that—and to find this old settlement here— Why, I had always thought that no man had ever so much as builded him a dugout in the Sasnokee-keewan.”
He stopped suddenly. It struck him as ridiculous: this was he babbling on while she stood there looking at him like that. Certainly he had given her ample opportunity to say something. Yet she seemed to have not the slightest intention of opening her mouth. Still she watched him as one might watch some new, strange animal.
“What’s the matter?” he demanded sharply, her attitude beginning to irritate him. “Can’t you talk?”
“Yes.” Just the monosyllable, clearly enunciated. She had answered his question; he hoped she would go on. But she made no offer to do so.
“Well,” cried the man, “why don’t you? You’re not keeping still because we haven’t been introduced, are you? Good Lord, why do you look at me like I was part of a side show? Didn’t you ever see a man before? I’m not trying to flirt with you! Say something!”