She had drawn back, and was looking at him so steadily and with such
wondering depths in her eyes that he found himself compelled for an
instant to turn his own gaze carelessly away.
"And you used to talk to it," she said, "and it seemed _alive_?"
"Very much alive, Marge."
"And you _dreamed_ about me?"
He _had_ said that, and he felt again that warm rise of blood. He felt
himself in a difficult place. If she had been older, or even younger....
"Yes," he said truthfully.
He feared one other question was quite uncomfortably near. But it didn't
come. The girl rose suddenly to her feet, flung back her hair, and ran
to Tara, dozing in the sun. What she was saying to the beast, with her
arms about his shaggy neck, David could only guess. He found himself
laughing again, quietly of course, with his back to her, as he picked up
their dinner things. He had not anticipated such an experience as this.
It rather unsettled him. It was amusing--and had a decided thrill to
it. Undoubtedly Hauck and Brokaw were rough men; from what she had told
him he was convinced they were lawless men, engaged in a very wide
"underground" trade in whisky. But he believed that he would not find
them as bad as he had pictured them at first, even though the Nest was a
horrible place for the girl.
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