She shook her head.
“Those little fire-sticks.” She kept him to the subject which now held her interest. “They are magic, though.”
He tossed a match to her.
“Light it,” he said. “You can do it. You poor little kid!”
But she drew away from it, shaking her head violently. And, taking a chance that he read her character in one particular, he called her “Coward!”
She flashed a look at him that was full of angry defiance, and reaching out quickly took up the match. He saw that her hand shook. But her determination did not. She scratched the match upon the wall, held it while it burned. And her eyes, while the embers fell to her lap, were dancing with excitement.
“Another!” she cried, like a child, in evident forgetfulness of her hostility. “Another!”
She lighted them one after the other. Over the second she laughed delightedly. It was the first time he had heard her laugh. He laughed with her, as delighted as she. She struck a full dozen before he stopped her, saying that matches were gold-precious on the trail and must be hoarded.
“Then let me swallow smoke!” she commanded.
The vision of this splendid young girl-animal smoking his black old pipe tickled his sense of humor, and it was difficult for him to explain seriously what in most likelihood would be the result to her.