"I've got my buggy here, and I'm goin' that way, and I can jist set ye
down thar cool and comfortable. Ef," he continued, in the same assuring
tone, without waiting for a reply, "ye'll jist take a good grip of
my arm thar," curving his wrist and hand behind him like a shepherd's
crook, "I'll go first, and break away the brush for ye."

She obeyed mechanically, and they fared on through the thick ferns in
this fashion for some moments, he looking ahead, occasionally dropping
a word of caution or encouragement, but never glancing at her face.
When they reached the buggy he lifted her into it carefully,--and
perpendicularly, it struck her afterwards, very much as if she had been
a transplanted sapling with bared and sensitive roots,--and then gravely
took his place beside her.

"Bein' in the timber trade myself, ma'am," he said, gathering up the
reins, "I chanced to sight these woods, and took a look around. My name
is Bowers, of Mendocino; I reckon there ain't much that grows in the
way o' standin' timber on the Pacific Slope that I don't know and can't
locate, though I DO say it. I've got ez big a mill, and ez big a run in
my district, ez there is anywhere. Ef you're ever up my way, you ask for
Bowers--Jim Bowers--and that's ME."

There is probably nothing more conducive to conversation between
strangers than a wholesome and early recognition of each other's
foibles. Mr. Bowers, believing his chance acquaintance a superior woman,
naively spoke of himself in a way that he hoped would reassure her
that she was not compromising herself in accepting his civility, and so
satisfy what must be her inevitable pride. On the other hand, the woman
regained her self-possession by this exhibition of Mr. Bowers's vanity,