“Well, may I be switched if I was ever in sich a reedicklus situation before!” she grumbled. “I reckon you never before pulled a lady out o’ the top of a tree?”
The scout was staring at her most ungallantly.
“I didn’t,” he admitted. “I must beg your pardon if I was rough while hauling on that rope.”
“Oh, I ain’t as light as swan’s-down!” she cackled. “I’m purty hefty; and heftier still when I git my mad up and git in a fight.”
“But how did you get in such a place?” he was forced to demand.
“I fell in.”
“Fell in?”
“You kin understand words, can’t ye? Yes, I fell in.”
“But——”
“Well, I clim’ up here last night, thinkin’ it’d be a safer place to spend the night in than down on the ground, with wolves howlin’ ’round, and mebbe road agents perambulatin’ along the trail. It looked like a good sort of a nest up here, and I thought I’d try it fer safety; fer I cal’lated that if a wild cat, er a panther, got into the tree, I could git down, mebbe; and I wasn’t as afeard o’ them as I was o’ the wolves I heerd howlin’. And so I clim’ up. And while mussin’ ’round here on these limbs, tryin’ to make myself comfortable, I slipped into that hole, hurtin’ my arm some; and then, fust thing I knowed, I was down in the holler of the tree inside, and couldn’t git out ag’in.”