“It is only a few hours since I picked you up down there, looking as if you were dead,” he said, impatiently; “and you know you are not fit to tramp.” 274
“Well, I’m not dead yet, anyway,” she answered, with a shrug of her shoulders; “and as I’m going to break away from this camp about to-morrow, I thought I’d like to see a bit of the woods first.”
“You—are going—to-morrow?”
“I reckon so.”
“’Tana! And you have not said a word to me of it? That was not very friendly, little girl.”
She did not reply, but bent her head low over her work.
After observing her for a while in silence, he arose and put on his hat.
“Here is my knife,” he remarked. “You had better use it, if you are determined to haggle at that stick. Your own knife is too dull for any use. You can leave it here in the cabin when you are done with it.”
She accepted it without a word, but flushed red when he had gone, and she found the eyes of Harris regarding her sadly.
“‘Not very friendly,’” she said, going over Overton’s words—“you think that, too—don’t you? You think I’m ugly, and saucy, and awful, I know! You look scoldings at me; but if you knew all, maybe you wouldn’t—if you knew that my heart is just about breaking. I’m going out where there is no one to talk to, or I’ll be crying next.”