"Not so very. You see, it has always been rather rough out this way—lumbermen and the like always puttin' up at Dobson's. That's why I thought you was better off in the station, than to try to make your way about last night. And some of them rough fellows stop at my place—that's Dobson's—so while they're out now is your chance to get a hot drink."
As he spoke, a rough man, indeed, passed the carriage in which Tavia and Sam were riding! Wasn't he rough! Tavia instinctively shrugged up closer to the old man beside her.
"Uncle Sam, was that a—woodman?"
Tavia fell in quite naturally to calling the station agent Uncle Sam.
"Yep, he's one of the sort," taking care to keep his smile focussed on the man, who although he was going in the opposite direction was able to keep his eye on Tavia. "You see they are the most suspicious set—takes a man a lifetime to know them, a woman an eternity, and then she has to depend upon their good nature."
Tavia smiled, and hurried the old horse until his ears "sassed her back." They jogged along—every moment nature was getting more and more wideawake, until Tavia feared she would really wake up to the magnitude of her own personal offence, everything else seemed so straightforward and so upright!
Why in the world had she ever listened to the ravings of that man with the soft hat and the hard smile?
After all, Dorothy must be right—and she, Tavia, was wrong. Yes, it was indisputably wrong to do the things that had seemed so smart before—things that Dorothy could never laugh at.
She sighed heavily. Sam heard it.
"What's wrong?" he asked, looking over his glasses, and under his wrinkles.