“I—I never—never knew—you could be like this.”
“Like what? Genie, I declare, I’m half ashamed of you! Nothing has happened. Only this lad mistook you for a boy. Anyone would think the world had come to an end. All because you woke up and found out you had on boy’s clothes. Well, you’ve got to take your medicine now. You would wear them. You never minded me. You didn’t care how I saw you!”
“I don’t care how he saw me or sees me, either, so there,” declared Genie, enigmatically.
“Oh! Well, what’s wrong, then?” queried Adam, more curious than ever.
“I—he—it—it was what he called me,” replied Genie, confusedly.
Adam gazed at her downcast face with speculative eyes, intuitively feeling that she had not told the whole truth. He had anticipated trouble with this spirited young wild creature from the desert, once they got into civilization.
“Genie, I’ve been mostly in fun. Now I’m serious.... I want you to be perfectly natural and nice with these Blairs, or anyone else we meet.”
Manifestly she took that seriously enough. Without another word she dragged her blankets and canvas away from the firelight, and at the edge of the gathering gloom under the oaks she made her bed and crawled into it.
A little while after dark, young Blair presented himself at Adam’s fire, and took a seat to which he was invited.
“I suppose you folks are ranching it?” asked Adam, by way of opening conversation.