The child continued to stare at him in unaffected wonder, leaving him painfully conscious of his absurd size and forbidding appearance. He feared that once it had overcome its first amazement it would begin to cry and thus cover him with ignominy. But, happily for him, the puppy experienced none of its owner's doubts and uncertainties; it flattened its round stomach, thumped its soft paws upon the sidewalk, then approached the giant in a delirious series of wobbly leaps, wiggling an eloquent, if awkward, declaration of friendship.
"Fine dog-team you're driving, sonny!" Daniels smiled, congratulating himself upon an admirable display of wit, only to realize with a start that he had made a mistake. Some sixth sense informed him that this was not a boy. It was a humiliating error.
"Say, missie, you—you don't belong here. You're plumb off your trail. That's a cinch!" He cast a worried glance over his shoulder and saw a hideous blanched face smile at him between a pair of red curtains. He glared back at the woman, and his cheeks grew hot. Meanwhile the little girl continued her unwinking examination.
She wore a ridiculous fur parka, scarcely larger than Daniels's cap, and tiny mukluks that made her legs look shorter and fatter than they were. Her mittens were the littlest things he had ever seen and he was regarding them wonderingly when she amazed him by approaching and laying one in his hand.
Now, this frank and full declaration of friendship reduced Daniels to a helpless condition; he had never been more troubled in his life. He was vaguely frightened, and yet he thrilled in an unaccountable manner at the touch. He was half minded to withdraw his hand from his glove and retreat, leaving it in her possession, but thought again of these evil surroundings, and of the responsibility that had devolved upon him with her surrender. In the midst of his dumbness the young lady burst into a bubbling and intimate recital of her adventures, which doubtless would have been perfectly intelligible to her mother, but which left the discoverer of John Daniels Creek floundering for a translation.
He concealed his disgraceful ignorance by an easy assumption of understanding. He nodded, he winked, he grinned. He eyed the infinitesimal hand that lay in his, then gingerly removed his own glove the better to safeguard its treasure, whereupon the small mitten promptly closed over one of his big knuckled fingers. Daniels gasped and held his digit as rigid as a pick-handle. Escape was no longer possible.
Having finished her recital the tot burst into a funny gurgle which plainly established a deep and undying intimacy between them, then, like all maidens who have pledged their affections, she made plain her readiness to accompany her protector to the end of the world.
But the puppy held back and delayed progress as effectively as a ship's anchor, so, fearing to exert too great a strain upon his extended finger, Daniels gave the animal bodily into her embrace. One short arm encircled the dog's neck, whereupon, as if by habit, it limply resigned itself to misery. The three went slowly out of that sin-ridden place, the man dazed and delighted, the child loquacious and trustful, the puppy with lolling tongue and legs protruding stiffly.
Daniels had mastered many dialects in his time, from Chinook to Pidgin English, but to save himself he could make nothing out of this language. Some words were plain, but they were lost in a bubbling flow of strange, moist, lisping articulations that left the general meaning obscure.
She answered all his questions eagerly, fully, and he acknowledged: