“Excuse me,” he said, presently, as his gray eyes held hers. “That's how I had it. As I remember girls—an' it doesn't seem long since I left home—most of them would die of lonesomeness up here.” Then he addressed himself to Bo. “How about you? You see, I figured you'd be the one that liked it, an' your sister the one who wouldn't.”
“I won't get lonesome very soon,” replied Bo.
“I'm glad. It worried me some—not ever havin' girls as company before. An' in a day or so, when you're rested, I'll help you pass the time.”
Bo's eyes were full of flashing interest, and Helen asked him, “How?”
It was a sincere expression of her curiosity and not doubtful or ironic challenge of an educated woman to a man of the forest. But as a challenge he took it.
“How!” he repeated, and a strange smile flitted across his face. “Why, by givin' you rides an' climbs to beautiful places. An' then, if you're interested,' to show you how little so-called civilized people know of nature.”
Helen realized then that whatever his calling, hunter or wanderer or hermit, he was not uneducated, even if he appeared illiterate.
“I'll be happy to learn from you,” she said.
“Me, too!” chimed in Bo. “You can't tell too much to any one from Missouri.”
He smiled, and that warmed Helen to him, for then he seemed less removed from other people. About this hunter there began to be something of the very nature of which he spoke—a stillness, aloofness, an unbreakable tranquillity, a cold, clear spirit like that in the mountain air, a physical something not unlike the tamed wildness of his pets or the strength of the pines.