Cowering, the man fell back a step.
Again the girl’s hands were cupped.
“Mr. Powell! Come over!” she called. “I have something important to tell you.”
The man reined in his horse, stared across the gorge in apparent surprise, then directed his horse down a narrow path that led down one side of the gorge and up the other.
Standing there, leaning against the doorpost, the girl watched him with all the fascination that a condemned man must feel as he sees a man approaching with a message commuting his sentence.
The man who, a few minutes later, came riding up the steep trail to the cabin, was quite as different from the average mountaineer as Florence had, at a distance, judged him to be. His face was smooth shaven and his gray suit, his tie, his leggings, his riding boots, all were in good order. When at last he spoke it was not in the vernacular of the mountains, but of the wide world outside.
“You—you have some coal land?” she hesitated as he asked what he might do for her.
“Why, yes, little girl,” he smiled as he spoke. “My brothers and I have several acres up these slopes.”
Florence stiffened at his “little girl.” She realized that he had used the term in kindness, but he must not think of her as a little girl. She was for a moment a business woman with an important transaction to carry through.
“You want to sell it?” she said briskly.