the wagon.  It then became evident that the traveler had seen her, and was not averse to her interest in his movements, although he had not changed his attitude of savage retrospection.  An occasional ejaculation of suppressed passion, as if the memory of some past conflict was too much for him, escaped him even in this peaceful occupation.  As this possibly caused the young girl to still hover timidly in the distance, he suddenly entered the wagon and reappeared carrying a tin bucket, with which he somewhat ostentatiously crossed her path, his eyes darkly wandering as if seeking something.

“If you’re lookin’ for the spring, it’s a spell furder on—­by the willows.”

It was a pleasant voice, the teamster thought, albeit with a dry, crisp, New England accent unfamiliar to his ears.  He looked into the depths of an unlovely blue-check sunbonnet, and saw certain small, irregular features and a sallow check, lit up by a pair of perfectly innocent, trustful, and wondering brown eyes.  Their timid possessor seemed to be a girl of seventeen, whose figure, although apparently clad in one of her mother’s gowns, was still undeveloped and repressed by rustic hardship and innutrition.  As her eyes met his she saw that the face of this gloomy stranger was still youthful, by no means implacable, and, even at that moment, was actually suffused by a brick-colored blush!  In matters of mere intuition, the sex, even in its most rustic phase, is still our superior; and this unsophisticated girl, as the trespasser stammered, “Thank ye, miss,” was instinctively emboldened to greater freedom.

“Dad ain’t tu hum, but ye kin have a drink o’ milk if ye keer for it.”

She motioned shyly towards the cabin, and then led the way.  The stranger, with an inarticulate murmur, afterwards disguised as a cough, followed her meekly.  Nevertheless, by the time they had reached the cabin he had shaken his long hair over his eyes again, and a dark abstraction gathered chiefly in his eyebrows.  But it did not efface from the girl’s mind the previous concession of a blush, and, although it added to her curiosity, did not alarm her.  He drank the milk awkwardly.  But by the laws of courtesy, even among the most savage tribes, she felt he was, at that moment at least, harmless.  A timid smile fluttered around her mouth as she said:—­

“When ye hung up them things I thought ye might be havin’ suthing to swap or sell.  That is,”—­with tactful politeness,—­“mother was wantin’ a new skillet, and it would have been handy if you’d had one.  But”—­with an apologetic glance at his equipments—­“if it ain’t your business, it’s all right, and no offense.”

“I’ve got a lot o’ skillets,” said the strange teamster, with marked condescension, “and she can have one.  They’re all that’s left outer a heap o’ trader’s stuff captured by Injuns t’other side of Laramie.  We had a big fight to get ’em back.  Lost two of our best men,—­scalped at Bloody Creek,—­and had to drop a dozen redskins in their tracks,—­me and another man,—­lyin’ flat in er wagon and firin’ under the flaps o’ the canvas.  I don’t know ez they waz wuth it,” he added in gloomy retrospect; “but I’ve got to get rid of ’em, I reckon, somehow, afore I work over to Deadman’s Gulch again.”