“For all summer?”
“Possibly.”
Again there was a silence, during which the water trickled off the mountaineer’s clothes and ran over the little stones at his feet.
“Goin’ ter make fun o’ me when ye git up thar?” the catechism was at length resumed. Dufour laughed.
“I could tell a pretty good thing on you,” he answered, taking a sweeping observation of the stalwart fellow’s appearance as he stood there with his loose jeans trousers and blue cotton shirt clinging to his shivering limbs.
“See yer, now,” said the latter, in a wheedling tone, and wringing his light, thin beard with one sinewy dark hand, “see yer, now, I’d like for ye not ter do thet, strenger.”
“Why?”
“Well,” said the mountaineer, after some picturesque hesitation and faltering, “’cause I hev a ’quaintance o’ mine up ther’ at thet tavern.”
“Indeed, have you? Who is it?”