Mr. Hemmingway was not afraid; he declared himself delighted.  He brought a generous armful of small cut willow boughs, and deposited them before a small stove, which seemed a temporary substitute for the usual large adobe chimney that generally occupied the entire gable of a miner’s cabin.  An elbow and short length of stovepipe carried the smoke through the cabin side.  But he also noticed that his fair companion had used the interval to put on a pair of white cuffs and a collar.  However, she brushed the green moss from his sleeve with some toweling, and although this operation brought her so near to him that her breath—­as soft and warm as the southwest trades—­stirred his hair, it was evident that this contiguity was only frontier familiarity, as far removed from conscious coquetry as it was, perhaps, from educated delicacy.

“The boys gin’rally kem to take up enough wood for me to begin with,” she said, “but I reckon they didn’t know I was comin’ up so soon.”

Hemmingway’s distrust returned a little at this obvious suggestion that he was only a substitute for their general gallantry, but he smiled and said somewhat bluntly, “I don’t suppose you lack for admirers here.”

The girl, however, took him literally.  “Lordy, no!  Me and Mamie Robinson are the only girls for fifteen miles along the creek.  ADMIRIN’!  I call it jest PESTERIN’ sometimes!  I reckon I’ll hev to keep a dog!”

Hemmingway shivered.  Yes, she was not only conscious, but spoilt already.  He pictured to himself the uncouth gallantries of the settlement, the provincial badinage, the feeble rivalries of the young men whom he had seen at the general store.  Undoubtedly this was what she was expecting in him!

“Well,” she said, turning from the fire she had kindled, “while I’m settin’ the table, tell me what’s a-doin’ in Sacramento!  I reckon you’ve got heaps of lady friends thar,—­I’m told there’s lots of fashions just from the States.”

“I’m afraid I don’t know enough of them to interest you,” he said dryly.

“Go on and talk,” she replied.  “Why, when Tom Flynn kem back from Sacramento, and he warn’t thar more nor a week, he jest slung yarns about his doin’s thar to last the hull rainy season.”

Half amused and half annoyed, Hemmingway seated himself on the little platform beside the open door, and began a conscientious description of the progress of Sacramento, its new buildings, hotels, and theatres, as it had struck him on his last visit.  For a while he was somewhat entertained by the girl’s vivacity and eager questioning, but presently it began to pall.  He continued, however, with a grim sense of duty, and partly as a reason for watching her in her household duties.  Certainly she was graceful!  Her tall, lithe, but beautifully moulded figure, even in its characteristic southwestern indolence, fell into poses as picturesque as they were unconscious.  She lifted the big molasses-can from its shelf on the rafters with the attitude of a Greek water-bearer.  She upheaved the heavy flour-sack to the same secure shelf with the upraised palms of an Egyptian caryatid.  Suddenly she interrupted Hemmingway’s perfunctory talk with a hearty laugh.  He started, looked up from his seat on the platform, and saw that she was standing over him and regarding him with a kind of mischievous pity.