“Look, Dan!” she said, with unwonted humility. “They’re the best I could find, and—and I’m sorry enough for being ugly yesterday. I’ll try not to be any more. I’ll do anything you want—yes, I will!” she added, snappishly, as he smiled dubiously, she thought unbelievingly. “I’d—dress like a boy, and go on the trails with you, paddle your canoe, or feed your horse—I would, if you like.”
Lyster, who was following, heard her words, and glanced at Overton with curious meaning. Overton met the look with something like a threat in his own eyes—a sort of “laugh if you dare!”
“But I don’t like,” Dan said, briefly, to poor ’Tana, who had made such a great effort to atone for ugly words spoken to him the day before.
She said no more; and Lyster, walking beside her, pulled one of her unruly curls teasingly, to make her look at him. 92
“Didn’t I tell you it was better to give your smiles to me instead of to Overton?” he asked, in a bantering way, as he took the string of fish. “I care a great deal more about your good opinion than he does.”
“Oh—you—” she began, and shrugged her shoulders for a silent finish to her thought, as though words were useless.
“Oh, me! Of course, me. Now, if you had offered to paddle a canoe for me, I’d—”
“You’d loll in the bottom of the boat and let me,” she flashed out. “Of course you would; you’re made just that way.”
“Sh—h, ’Tana,” said Overton, while to himself he smiled in an indulgent way, and thought: “That is like youth; they only quarrel when there is a listener.” Then turning to the girl, he said aloud:
“You know, ’Tana, I want you to learn other things besides paddling a canoe. Such things are all right for a boy; but—”