"I don't see why you should talk to me like this," Dill declared in an injured tone. "You can't point to a single thing I've done."
"I ain't got fingers enough," Uncle Bill said dryly, "and my toes is under cover. It's prob'ly slipped your mind that I was down in south'rn Oregon when you left between two suns; but tain't that"--his old eyes gleamed--"it's what you done last winter--goin' down there deliberate to jump Bruce Burt's claim."
"Ss-sh!" Mr. Dill hissed, not in resentment but in alarm as he glanced over his shoulder. "That's Burt's father." From the corner of his mouth--"I think he's got money."
Money! The word acted like a strychnia tablet upon Ore City's retarded circulation. Money! Warmth returned to its extremities. It looked at the object of these hopeful suspicions as though its many heads swung on a single neck. He was sitting by the stove in a suit of clothes that must have cost as much as fifteen dollars and he appeared as oblivious to their concentrated gaze as though he were alone in the middle of his ranch.
The strange female was still unaccounted for. Ore City had the tense, over-strained feeling of a spectator trying to watch all the acts in a triple-ringed circus. When she removed her outer wraps it was seen that she was not only young but, in Ore City's eyes, overpoweringly good-looking. Was she married? Every question paled beside this one. Surely--they looked at Uncle Bill contemptuously--even if he had struck something she would not marry that old codger.
When she walked to the stove to warm her hands if they had followed their impulses they would have jumped and run. The bravest among them dared not raise his eyes two inches above the bottom part of the stove-door though in each mind there was a wild groping for some light and airy nothing to show how much he felt at ease. Something which should be appropriate and respectful, yet witty.
And of course it must be Porcupine Jim who finally spoke.
"That's a hard stage ride, ma'am," he said deferentially. "Them jolts is enough to tear the linin' out of a lady. They does me up and I'm quite hearty."
Ore City blushed to the roots of its hair and there was murder in the eyes that turned on Jim. Didn't he know nothin'--that Swede?
They felt somewhat relieved when she laughed.
"It is rather bumpy but I enjoyed it. The mountains are wonderful, and the air, and everybody is so kind; it's a new world to me and I love it all!"