her protector; he felt himself responsible for both. Considering her no
longer his equal, he was no longer frank with her.

"There's nothin' to boo-boo for," he said, with a half-affected
brusqueness. "So quit, now! They'll stop in a minit, and send some one
back for us. Shouldn't wonder if they're doin' it now."

But Susy, with feminine discrimination detecting the hollow ring in his
voice, here threw herself upon him and began to beat him violently with
her little fists. "They ain't! They ain't! They ain't. You know it!
How dare you?" Then, exhausted with her struggles, she suddenly threw
herself flat on the dry grass, shut her eyes tightly, and clutched at
the stubble.

"Get up," said the boy, with a pale, determined face that seemed to have
got much older.

"You leave me be," said Susy.

"Do you want me to go away and leave you?" asked the boy.

Susy opened one blue eye furtively in the secure depths of her
sun-bonnet, and gazed at his changed face.

"Ye-e-s."

He pretended to turn away, but really to look at the height of the
sinking sun.

"Kla'uns!"