at her. Dressed jest like a city girl, by granny! with ruffles on her
skirts--to ketch afire if she wasn't mighty keerful!--and a big straw hat
tied down with a veil, and kid gloves on her hands, and her yeller
hair kinda fallin' around her face--and them yeller eyes snappin' like
flames--by granny! if she didn't make as purty a picture as I ever want
to set eyes on! Slim and straight, jest like a storybook woman--_he-he!_
'Course, she was all smoke an' dirt; a big flake of burned grass was on her
hair, I took notice, and them ruffles was black up to her knees--_he-he!_
And she had a big smut on her cheek--but she was right there with her stack
of blues, by granny! Settin' into the game like a--a--" He leaned and
spat "But burnin' guards ain't no work for a woman to do, an' I told Man
so--straight out. 'You git help,' I says. 'I see you're might' near through
with this here strip,' I says, 'an' I'm in a hurry, or I'd stay, right
now.' And, by granny! if that there wife of Man's didn't up an' hit me
another biff--_he-he!_

"'Thank you very much,' she says to me, like ice water. 'When we need
your help, we'll be sure to let you know--but at present,' she says, 'we
couldn't think of troubling you.' And then, by granny! she turns right
around and smiles up at me--_he-he!_ Made me feel like somebody'd tickled
m' ear with a spear of hay when I was asleep, by granny! Never felt
anything like it--not jest with somebody smilin' at me.

"'Polycarp Jenks,' she says to me, 'we do appreciate what you've told us,
and I believe you're right,' she says. 'But don't insiniwate I'm not as
good a fighter as any man who ever breathed,' she says. 'Manley has another
of his headaches to-day--going to town always gives him a sick headache,'
she says, 'and I've done nearly all of this my own, lone self,' she says.
'And I'm horribly proud of it, and I'll never forgive you for saying I--'
And then, by granny! if she didn't begin to blink them eyes, and I felt