"No. It's kind of making out he's superior to her, when he isn't. Say, you don't figger I meant that way?"
There was anxiety in the final question for all the accompanying smile.
In a moment Jessie was all regret.
"I didn't have time to think," she said, "and anyway I wouldn't have figgered that way. And—and I'd hate a man who couldn't do things when it was up to him. You'd stand no sort of chance on the northern trail if you couldn't do things. You'd have been feeding the coyotes years back, else."
"Yes, and I'd hate to be feeding the coyotes on any trail."
They were moving down the winding woodland alley. They brushed their way through the delicate overhanging foliage. The dank scent of the place was seductive. It was intoxicating with an atmosphere such as lovers are powerless to resist. The murmur of the river came to them on the one hand, and the silence of the pine woods, on the other, lent a slumberous atmosphere to the whole place.
Jessie laughed. To her the thought seemed ridiculous.
"If the stories are true I guess it would be a mighty brave coyote would come near you—dead," she said. Then of a sudden the happy light died out of her eyes. "But—but—you nearly did—pass over. The Bell River neches nearly had your scalp."
It was the man's turn to laugh. He shook his head,
"Don't worry a thing that way," he said.