“None of your business!” snapped Winthrope.
Miss Leslie glanced at him, even more puzzled and startled by this outbreak than she had been by Blake’s strange talk. But if Blake was angered, he did not show it.
“Say, Win,” he remarked gravely, “I was going to take you down to the pool after supper, on a try with the bows. But I guess you’d better stay close by the fire.”
“Yes; it is time you gave a little consideration to those who deserve it,” rejoined Winthrope, with a peevishness of tone and manner which surprised Miss Leslie. “I tell you, I’m tired of being treated like a dog.”
“All right, all right, old man. Just draw up your chair, and get all the hot broth aboard you can stow,” answered Blake, soothingly.
Winthrope sat down; but throughout the meal, he continued to complain over trifles with the peevishness of a spoiled child, until Miss Leslie blushed for him. Greatly to her astonishment, Blake endured the nagging without a sign of irritation, and in the end took his bow and arrows and went off down the cleft, with no more than a quiet reminder to Winthrope that he should keep near the fire.
When, shortly after dark, the engineer came groping his way back up the gorge, he was by no means so calm. Out of six shots, he had hit one antelope in the neck and another in the haunch; yet both animals had made off all the swifter for their wounds.
The noise of his approach awakened Winthrope, who turned over, and began to complain in a whining falsetto. Miss Leslie, who was peering out through the bars of her screen, looked to see Blake kick the prostrate man. His frown showed only too clearly that he was in a savage temper. To her astonishment, he spoke in a soothing tone until Winthrope again fell asleep. Then he quietly set about erecting a canopy of bamboos over the sleeper.
Just why he should build this was a puzzle to the girl. But when she caught a glimpse of Blake’s altered expression, she drew a deep breath of relief, and picked her way around the edge of her bamboo stakes, to lie down without a trace of the fear which had been haunting her.