"Oh, I know you're just coming from Davy MacDougall's, and you are going to Hardy's camp to act as commander-in-chief of the eastern tramps in it, and your name is Mr. Jack Genesee—and—and—that is all."
"Yes, I reckon it is," he agreed, looking at her in astonishment. "It's a good deal, considering you never saw me before, and I don't know—"
"And you don't know who I am," she rejoined easily. "Well, I can tell you that, too. I'm a wanderer from Kentucky, prospecting, as you would call it, for something new in this Kootenai country of yours, and my name is Rachel Hardy."
"That's a good, square statement," he smiled, put at his ease by the girl's frankness. "So you're one of the party I'm to look after on this cultus corrie?"
"Yes, I'm one of them—Cousin Hardy says the most troublesome of the lot, because I always want to be doing just the things I've no business to"; then she looked at him and laughed a little. "I tell you this at once," she added, "so you will know what a task you have undertaken, and if you're timid, you might back out before it's too late—are you timid?"
"Do I look it?"
"N—no"; but she didn't give him the scrutiny she had at first—only a swift glance and a little hurry to her next question: "What was that queer term you used when speaking of our trip—cul—cultus?"
"Oh, cultus corrie! That's Chinook for pleasure ride."
"Is it? What queer words they have. Cousin Harry was telling me it was a mongrel language, made up of Indian, French, English, and any stray words from other tongues that were adjustable to it. Is it hard to learn?"
"I think not—I learned it."