"No," she replied, "jest warmin' up a little."

"Why, it's not cold."

"I--I was wet."

"_Wet?_" said he, astonished.

She saw her slip, and flushed. "Fell in the crik," she answered briefly,
hastily and falsely.

"Why, that's too bad," said he, with ready sympathy, unfeigned and real.

All the time the girl was eying him through often-lowered lashes, and
the more she looked at him the more she felt that he was not, like many
"foreigners," to be distrusted and be held aloof. His clothes did not
suggest to her the "revenuer," although they certainly were different
from any she had ever seen before on man or beast (his knee breeches
gave her some amusement), and he was totally unarmed, having laid his
rifle down and left it at a distance, leaning against a stump.

His hands and face were not sunburned--indeed, his hands were delicately
fashioned and much whiter than any she had ever seen before on man or
woman. His appearance certainly did not, to her, convey the thought of
strength--and manhood, there among the mountains, is thought to find its
first and last expression through its muscle; yet, for some reason,
although her first glance made her think he was a puny creature, she
neither scorned nor pitied him. He was, perhaps, too smoothly dressed,
too carefully shaved; the gun he had laid down so carelessly had too
much "bright work" on it--but on the whole, she liked him. A city maiden