The girl nodded wearily.

"Post-trader at Fort Bethune?"

Again the rumpled head silently acquiesced.

"What is your name?"

"He always called me 'kid,'" she admitted unwillingly, "but I reckon if

you have any further occasion for addressing me, you'd better say,

'Miss Gillis.'"

Hampton laughed lightly, his reckless humor instantly restored by her

perverse manner.

"Heaven preserve me!" he exclaimed good naturedly, "but you are

certainly laying it on thick, young lady! However, I believe we might

become good friends if we ever have sufficient luck to get out from

this hole alive. Darn if I don't sort of cotton to you, little

girl--you've got some sand."

For a brief space her truthful, angry eyes rested scornfully upon his

face, her lips parted as though trembling with a sharp retort. Then

she deliberately turned her back upon him without uttering a word.

For what may have been the first and only occasion in Mr. Hampton's

audacious career, he realized his utter helplessness. This mere slip

of a red-headed girl, this little nameless waif of the frontier,

condemned him so completely, and without waste of words, as to leave

him weaponless. Not that he greatly cared; oh, no! still, it was an

entirely new experience; the arrow went deeper than he would have

willingly admitted. Men of middle age, gray hairs already commencing

to shade their temples, are not apt to enjoy being openly despised by

young women, not even by ordinary freckle-faced girls, clad in coarse

short frocks. Yet he could think of no fitting retort worth the

speaking, and consequently he simply lay back, seeking to treat this

disagreeable creature with that silent contempt which is the last

resort of the vanquished.

He was little inclined to admit, even to himself, that he had been

fairly hit, yet the truth remained that this girl was beginning to

interest him oddly. He admired her sturdy independence, her audacity

of speech, her unqualified frankness. Mr. Hampton was a thoroughgoing

sport, and no quality was quite so apt to appeal to him as dead

gameness. He glanced surreptitiously aside at her once more, but there

was no sign of relenting in the averted face. He rested lower against

the rock, his face upturned toward the sky, and thought. He was

becoming vaguely aware that something entirely new, and rather

unwelcome, had crept into his life during that last fateful half-hour.

It could not be analyzed, nor even expressed definitely in words, but

he comprehended this much--he would really enjoy rescuing this girl,

and he should like to live long enough to discover into what sort of

woman she would develop.




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