“Mornin’, Polly!”
“I was comin’ to wake you up,” she smiled.
“I just waked up,” he yawned, humoring the jest.
“You don’t seem to have much use for this ladder.”
“Not unless I’m goin’ up; and I wouldn’t then if I could jump as high as I can fall.” He went toward her to help her down.
“I wouldn’t climb very high,” she said, and scorning his hand with a tantalizing little grimace she leaped as lightly as had he to the ground. Two older women who sat about a kettle of steaming clothes watched her.
“Look at Polly Conrad, won’t ye? I declare that gal——”
“Lyddy!” cried Polly, “bring Dave’s breakfast!”
At the door of each log cabin, as solidly built as a little fort, a hunter was cleaning a long rifle. At the western angle two men were strengthening the pickets of the palisade. About the fire two mothers were suckling babes at naked breasts. A boy was stringing a bow, and another was hurling a small tomahawk at an oaken post, while a third who was carrying wood for the open fire cried hotly:
“Come on here, you two, an’ he’p me with this wood!” And grumbling they came, for that fort harbored no idler, irrespective of age or sex.