The girl was evidently frightened, as if not accustomed to singing in public. She may not have heard exactly what these men were saying. But she had caught the note of unfriendliness, and she turned appealingly to the quarter whence had come the applause of the tourists.
There were, perhaps, a dozen men and women, who belonged to the tourist party, sitting apart from most of the other persons in the audience, and they gave the young girl another round of handclapping, accompanied by the rattling of glasses on the table.
The orchestra, consisting of two violins, a cornet, and piano, half hidden in foliage disposed in front of the stage, seemed to be uncertain what to play. The leader, his violin in his left hand, reached over the footlights and took a few sheets of music from the girl.
“What do you think o’ that?” chuckled old Joe Stokes. “She didn’t know enough to give her music to the leader before she come on! She didn’t have no rehearsal, neither. I should have seen her if she had, and I never clapped my lamps on her before.”
There was a well-built young man, with a cap pulled over his eyes, sitting by himself at a table near that at which the two tough-looking citizens who had commented on the girl sprawled.
The young man had on the high-laced boots commonly worn in country places—East, as well as West—and his sack coat looked as if he were not at all careful of his clothes, for there were marks of clay, sand and mud on them, as well as indications that he had come in contact with the bark of trees, more or less roughly.
Men who knew the type would say he was a “lumberjack.”
He kept his eyes on the girl, but not obtrusively. It was evident that he was interested in her, but was careful not to annoy her by letting her see that he was looking in her direction.
During the time the musicians were arranging their music on the stands, she stood there, a slim little slip of a thing, trembling visibly, but determined to go bravely through what she had to do.
“What do you s’pose she’s goin’ to spiel?” grunted one of the roughs to his companion.