“Papa has told me,” she said when he had done. “Papa knows.”
The picture of that gaunt, wild-eyed, terribly uncouth man with brain on fire with madness was very clear in his mind. And how she trusted in him, how she believed in his wisdom. To Sheldon, here was the most piteous case of his experience. He wondered if the whole affair would end in his taking the girl in his arms by sheer brute strength and so carrying her out of this cursed place. Or, after all, would it be better, better for her, if he went away and left them?
“I don’t know what to do!” he muttered, speaking his thought.
A little sound at the door startled him. He turned swiftly, his hands tightening about his rifle.
A squirrel squatted on its haunches on the doorstep, its bright, round eyes fixed on him in unwinking steadiness. With quick flirt of bushy tail a second squirrel appeared from without. He leaped by his brother, landed fairly inside, saw Sheldon, and turned, chattering, and went scampering out. From the yard he, too, looked in curiously. There came the third, drawing near cautiously until he, too, sat up on the doorstep.
Paula called to them softly, so softly that Sheldon, at her side, barely heard the call. It came from low in her throat, and was strangely musical and soothing. She called again. The squirrels pricked up their ears.
At the third call one of them came through the doorway, hesitated, made a great circle around Sheldon so that the bushy tail brushed the wall, and with a quick little jump was on the bunk and under the girl’s arm. His brothers, emboldened, followed him. From Paula’s protecting arms they looked out at Sheldon with a suspicion not unlike that which had been so much in her own eyes.
The girl cuddled them, cooing to them, making those strange, soft sounds deep in her throat. She looked up at Sheldon with the second of her quick smiles. “They are Napoleon and Richard and Johnny Lee!” she told him brightly. “They are my little friends. Kiss me, Napoleon!”
And Napoleon obeyed.