The lady with the defective eyes glared fiercely at him. Her judgment wavered two ways. Her first inclination was to hold that the fellow was jibing at her covertly, and she followed her original impulse far enough to clasp a neighboring sugar-bowl in a large, capable hand. A second and more merciful thought entered her brain and stole slowly through it, like a faint echo in a great cave.
"You don't have to make yourself pretty to talk to me," she said thoughtfully. "But if you're here for chow you're too late."
"Ma'am," said Buck Daniels instantly, "when I come in here I was hungry enough to eat nails; but I'll forget about chuck if you'll sit down an' chin with me a while."
The large hand of the cross-eyed lady stole out once more and rested upon the sugar-bowl.
"D'you mind sayin' that over agin?" she queried.
"Lonesomeness is worse'n hunger," said Buck Daniels, and he met her gaze steadily with his black eyes.
The hand released the sugar-bowl once more; something resembling colour stole into the brown cheeks of the maiden.
She said, relentingly: "Maybe you been off by yourse'f mining, stranger?"
Buck Daniels drew a long breath.
"Mines?" he said, and then laughed bitterly. "If that was all I been doin'—" he began darkly—and then stopped.