"But you mustn't feel responsible for me. I came down here on my own initiative. I certainly deserve whatever happens to me. Don't I?"
"What comfort would that be to me if anything unpleasant did happen to you?"
"Why," she asked frankly, "should you feel as responsible for my welfare as that? After all, I am only a stranger, you know."
He said: "Do you really feel like a stranger? Do you really feel that I am one?"
She considered the proposition for a few moments.
"No," she said, "I don't. And perhaps it is natural for us to take a friendly interest in each other."
"It comes perfectly natural to me to take a v-very v-vivid interest in you," he said. "What[306] with snakes and scorpions and wood-ticks and unboiled water and the actinic rays of the sun, I can't very well help worrying about you. After all," he added lucidly, "you're a girl, you know."
She admitted the accusation with a smile so sweet that there could be no doubt of her sex.
"However," she said, "you should entertain no apprehensions concerning me. I have none concerning you. I think you know your business."
"Of course," he said, going into his tent and returning loaded with crow-bar, pick-axe, dynamite, battery, and wires.