Jim was standing, his broad hat against his knee, looking at her fixedly. No doubt he was thinking how, when he had first seen her, her cheeks were as full and ripe as the apples of his old home in New England; and was wondering if the dip of strata were worth this. Seeing that he intended no reply, she looked down again and went on.
"I came here to see you about that. Once, Mr. Buckley, you offered to lend me some money, and I—I—am afraid I was very rude. And now—oh, dear!" And suddenly the poor little figure in faded and patched calico sank to the ground, and began to sob as if her heart would break.
Jim was distressed. He started forward, hesitated, looked up at the sky and down the gulch. Then he threw down his hat and darted into the cabin, returning in a moment with a buckskin bag, which he tossed impulsively into her lap.
"There, there!" he said distractedly. "Why didn't you say so before? Stop! Please stop! Oh, the——"
She looked up suddenly with a blinding smile.
"Now, don't say anything naughty!" she cried airily through her tears. She laughed queerly at Jim's open mouth and astonished eyes. He could not grasp the meaning of her change of mood. Before he could recover, she was on her feet, a roguish vision of blushing cheeks and dancing eyes. She shook the buckskin bag in his face.
"Aren't you afraid you'll never be paid, sir?" she demanded; then, with a quick sob, "I think you are the kindest man in all the world!" The next instant the alders closed about her fluttering figure on the trail. For a week after, her cheeks burned, and she was afraid to look out of the cabin lest Jim should be coming up the path.
As the winter wore away, however, she began to see the bottom of the little buckskin bag. The doctor was as absorbed as ever. She could not bring her pride to the point of asking Buckley for another loan, and so again the terror of poverty seized upon her. Her eyes looked harassed and worn, and her mouth had queer little lines in the corners. She would stand watching the flames in the chimney for hours, and then would turn suddenly, hungrily, and snatch up the little girl, devouring her with kisses. Sometimes she would wrinkle her brow, peeping into the doctor's manuscripts, trying to make out how near the end he was, but she always laid them down with a puzzled sigh. She did not eat enough, and she grew thin. She tried expedients of which she had read. For instance, one day she went down into the creek bottom and cut some willows. She peeled the bark from them, and from the inside rind she collected a quantity of fine white dust, with which she made a pasty kind of dough. The biscuits were tough and of a queer flavor. Even the doctor, after tasting one of them, looked up in surprise.
"What do you call this, my dear?" he inquired.
She clapped her hands gayly, and laughed with a catch in her voice.