"Howdy," she said briefly.

"Howdy, little girl?" said he, and looked at her and smiled.

This form of address much amused her. She was not far beyond sixteen,
but sixteen is counted womanhood, there in the mountains, and often is
an age for wife--and motherhood as well. "Little girl," to her, seemed
laughable. But then she suddenly remembered that to stop their flapping,
when they were all soaked, against her ankles, she had pinned her skirts
up--and she was not tall. The mistake, perhaps, was natural.

"Got a fire here?" he inquired, inanely, for the fire was very much in
evidence.

"Looks like it, don't it?" she said somewhat saucily, but robbed the
comment of offense by smiling somewhat shyly at him as he stood there.

He was better looking, she reflected, now that she had an unobstructed
view of him, even than he had appeared when she had peered at him from
her concealment behind the log and barricade of rushes. Of course he
was a "foreigner," and, therefore, a mere weakling, not to be considered
seriously as a specimen of sturdy manhood (how often had she heard the
mountain men speak of the lowlands men with scorn as weaklings?) but,
none the less, he interested and attracted her, even if he did not
inspire her with respect.

He laughed. "It does," said he, "looks very much like it. Been burning
brush?"