"Hello, stranger!" it called with a nasal inflection, "how air ye? Do
y' think minin' is goin' t' pan out well this yar spring?" Then she
caught sight of his weapon. "What are you going to shoot?" she asked
with sudden interest.

"I thought I might see a deer."

"Deer! hoh!" she cried in lofty scorn, reassuming her nasal tone. "You
is shore a tenderfoot! Don' you-all know that blastin' scares all th'
deer away from a minin' camp?"

Bennington looked confused. "No, I hadn't thought of that," he
confessed stoutly enough.

"I kind of like to shoot!" said she, a little wistfully. "What sort of
a gun is it?"

"A Savage smokeless," answered Bennington perfunctorily.

"One of the thirty-calibres?" inquired the sunbonnet with new interest.

"Yes," gasped Bennington, astonished at so much feminine knowledge of
firearms.

"Oh! I'd like to see it. I never saw any of those. May I shoot it, just
once?"

"Of course you may. More than once. Shall I come up?"

"No. I'll come down. You sit right still on that rock."