“They don’t look as though they’d be very comfortable,” continued Dorothy softly.
“Oh, I don’t know; people like that don’t mind such things, I fancy.”
“Did you ever ask them?”
Ethel looked up in quick suspicion, but Dorothy’s face was placid.
“Of course not! How silly!”
“Suppose you do, sometimes,” suggested Dorothy, quite as a matter of course.
“I thought that was what you were coming to!” flashed Ethel. “My dear girl, you have no idea what those miners are,” she continued in a superior tone. “In the first place, I don’t think there is one of them that understands a word of English, and I’d be afraid to trust my life anywhere near them.”
“But the women and the little children—they wouldn’t hurt you. Isn’t there something you could do for them, dear?” urged Dorothy.
A rumble of thunder brought the girls to their feet before Ethel could reply, and a big storm-cloud coming rapidly out of the west drove the whole thing from her mind.
“Quick—we must run!” she exclaimed. “We can’t reach home, but there’s an old shanty just behind those trees over there. No one lives in it, but ’twill give us a little shelter, maybe,” and in another minute the girls were hurrying down the hill. Big drops of rain and a sharp gust of wind quickened their steps to a run.