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Page 47
"But that was last night," he said, in a tone of raillery. "I was
tired, and you said so yourself, you know. But I'm ready to talk
now. What shall I tell you?"
"Anything," said the girl, with a laugh.
"What I am thinking of?" he said, with frankly admiring eyes.
"Yes."
"Everything?"
"Yes, everything." She stopped, and leaning forward, suddenly
caught the brim of his soft felt hat, and drawing it down smartly
over his audacious eyes, said, "Everything BUT THAT."
It was with some difficulty and some greater embarrassment that he
succeeded in getting his eyes free again. When he did so, she had
risen and entered the cabin. Disconcerted as he was, he was
relieved to see that her expression of amusement was unchanged.
Was her act a piece of rustic coquetry, or had she resented his
advances? Nor did her next words settle the question.
"Ye kin do yer nice talk and philanderin' after we've settled whar
we are, what we're goin', and what's goin' to happen. Jest now it
'pears to me that ez these yere logs are the only thing betwixt us
and 'kingdom come,' ye'd better be hustlin' round with a few spikes
to clinch 'em to the floor."
She handed him a hammer and a few spikes. He obediently set to
work, with little confidence, however, in the security of the
fastening. There was neither rope nor chain for lashing the logs
together; a stronger current and a collision with some submerged
stump or wreckage would loosen them and wreck the cabin. But he
said nothing. It was the girl who broke the silence.
"What's your front name?"
"Miles."
"MILES,--that's a funny name. I reckon that's why you war so FAR
OFF and DISTANT at first."
Mr. Hemmingway thought this very witty, and said so. "But," he
added, "when I was a little nearer a moment ago, you stopped me."
"But you was moving faster than the shanty was. I reckon you don't
take that gait with your lady friends at Sacramento! However, you
kin talk now."
"But you forget I don't know 'where we are,' nor 'what's going to
happen.'"
"But I do," she said quietly. "In a couple of hours we'll be
picked up, so you'll be free again."
Something in the confidence of her manner made him go to the door
again and look out. There was scarcely any current now, and the
cabin seemed motionless. Even the wind, which might have acted
upon it, was wanting. They were apparently in the same position as
before, but his sounding-line showed that the water was slightly
falling. He came back and imparted the fact with a certain
confidence born of her previous praise of his knowledge. To his
surprise she only laughed and said lazily, "We'll be all right, and
you'll be free, in about two hours."
"I see no sign of it," he said, looking through the door again.
"That's because you're looking in the water and the sky and the mud
for it," she said, with a laugh. "I reckon you've been trained to
watch them things a heap better than to study the folks about
here."
"I daresay you're right," said Hemmingway cheerfully, "but I don't
clearly see what the folks about here have to do with our situation
just now."
"You'll see," she said, with a smile of mischievous mystery. "All
the same," she added, with a sudden and dangerous softness in her
eyes, "I ain't sayin' that YOU ain't kinder right neither."
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