She had hardly thought herself capable of such perfidy, but she did not want him to think that she could be altogether blind to his faults. He sat bolt upright in an instant, and stammered out an apology.
But she cut it short. She resented the idea that he should imagine she took sufficient interest in him to be put out by a trifle.
At that very moment there rang out a rifle shot from the ridge just above the wood hard by. It was followed by another at a greater distance.
"There!" said the girl, with a finger pressed against her lower lip, and a look as if of relief on her face. "Now you will have some work to do. They have come sooner than you expected."
He scanned her face for a moment as if to note how this quick call to grim tragedy affected her. A man of courage himself, he instantly read there possibilities of a very high order and exceptional nerve. There was nothing neurotic about her. Whatever the wayward imaginings of her heart might be, she was a fresh, wholesome and healthy daughter of the prairie, one whose nerves were in accord with her mind and body, one for whom there were no physical or imaginary bogeys.
"It won't frighten you, will it, if we have to turn this kitchen into a sort of shooting gallery?" he asked.
She smiled at the very familiarity with which he handled his subject.
"It will be unpleasant," she replied simply, "but you know I'm accustomed to rifles."
"You don't seem to realise what a rising means amongst savages," he continued. "You must never lose your head, whatever happens, and you must never trust any one outside your own family circle. You must never let yourself fall into their hands; you understand me?"
"I understand," she said, facing him unflinchingly, "and
I have my rifle in case of emergencies."