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."Well," she said."Speak up.Am I goin' to stop here, or have I got to get up and get?""You can stay," said the young man quietly; "but as I've got my provisions and ammunition here, and haven't any other place to go to just now, I suppose we'll have to share it together."She glanced at him under her eyelids, and a half-bitter, half-contemptuous smile passed across her face."All right, old man," she said, holding out her hand, "it's a go.We'll start in housekeeping at once, if you like.""I'll have to come here once or twice a day," he said, quite composedly, "to look after my things, and get something to eat; but I'll be away most of the time, and what with camping out under the trees every night I reckon my share won't incommode you."She opened her black eyes upon him, at this original proposition.Then she looked down at her torn dress."I suppose this style of thing ain't very fancy, is it?" she said, with a forced laugh."I think I know where to beg or borrow a change for you, if you can't get any," he replied simply.She stared at him again."Are you a family man?""No."She was silent for a moment."Well," she said, "you can tell your girlI'm not particular about its being in the latest fashion."There was a slight flush on his forehead as he turned toward the little cupboard, but no tremor in his voice as he went on: "You'll find tea and coffee here, and, if you're bored, there's a book or two.You read, don't you—I mean English?"She nodded, but cast a look of undisguised contempt upon the two worn, coverless novels he held out to her."You haven't got last week's 'Sacramento Union,' have you? I hear they have my case all in; only them lying reporters made it out against me all the time.""I don't see the papers," he replied curtly."They say there's a picture of me in the 'Police Gazette,' taken in the act," and she laughed.He looked a little abstracted, and turned as if to go."I think you'll do well to rest a while just now, and keep as close hid as possible until afternoon.The trail is a mile away at the nearest point, but some one might miss it and stray over here.You're quite safe if you're careful, and stand by the tree.You can build a fire here," he stepped under the chimney-like opening, "without its being noticed.Even the smoke is lost and cannot be seen so high."The light from above was falling on his head and shoulders, as it had on hers.She looked at him intently."You travel a good deal on your figure, pardner, don't you?" she said, with a certain admiration that was quite sexless in its quality; "but I don't see how you pick up a living by it in the Carquinez Woods.So you're going, are you? You might be more sociable.Good-by.""Good-by!" He leaped from the opening."I say, pardner!"He turned a little impatiently.She had knelt down at the entrance, so as to be nearer his level, and was holding out her hand.But he did not notice it, and she quietly withdrew it."If anybody dropped in and asked for you, what name will they say?"He smiled."Don't wait to hear.""But suppose I wanted to sing out for you, what will I call you?"He hesitated."Call me—Lo.""Lo, the poor Indian?" [The first word of Pope's familiar apostrophe is humorously used in the far West as a distinguishing title for the Indian.]"Exactly."It suddenly occurred to the woman, Teresa, that in the young man's height, supple, yet erect carriage, color, and singular gravity of demeanor there was a refined, aboriginal suggestion.He did not look like any Indian she had ever seen, but rather as a youthful chief might have looked.There was a further suggestion in his fringed buckskin shirt and moccasins; but before she could utter the half-sarcastic comment that rose to her lips he had glided noiselessly away, even as an Indian might have done.She readjusted the slips of hanging bark with feminine ingenuity, dispersing them so as to completely hide the entrance.Yet this did not darken the chamber, which seemed to draw a purer and more vigorous light through the soaring shaft that pierced the room than that which came from the dim woodland aisles below.Nevertheless, she shivered, and drawing her shawl closely around her began to collect some half-burnt fragments of wood in the chimney to make a fire.But the preoccupation of her thoughts rendered this a tedious process, as she would from time to time stop in the middle of an action and fall into an attitude of rapt abstraction, with far-off eyes and rigid mouth.When she had at last succeeded in kindling a fire and raising a film of pale blue smoke, that seemed to fade and dissipate entirely before it reached the top of the chimney shaft, she crouched beside it, fixed her eyes on the darkest corner of the cavern, and became motionless.What did she see through that shadow?Nothing at first but a confused medley of figures and incidents of the preceding night; things to be put away and forgotten; things that would not have happened but for another thing—the thing before which everything faded! A ball-room; the sounds of music; the one man she had cared for insulting her with the flaunting ostentation of his unfaithfulness; herself despised, put aside, laughed at, or worse, jilted.And then the moment of delirium, when the light danced; the one wild act that lifted her, the despised one, above them all—made her the supreme figure, to be glanced at by frightened women, stared at by half-startled, half-admiring men! "Yes," she laughed; but struck by the sound of her own voice, moved twice round the cavern nervously, and then dropped again into her old position [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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