The Claim Jumpers: A Romance | Page 9

it is!" he rejoined sharply; and then, with the instinct that bids us
appreciate the extent of our relief by passing an annoyance along,
"Don't you know it's a penal offence to disturb claim stakes?"
He had suddenly discovered that he preferred to find claim stakes on
claims.
The Vision's eyes opened wider.
"It must be nice to know so much!" said she, in reverent admiration.
Bennington flushed. As a de Laney, the girls he had known had always
taken him seriously. He disliked being made fun of.
"This is nonsense," he objected, with some impatience. "I must know
where it came from."
In the background of his consciousness still whirled the moil of his
wonder and bewilderment. He clung to the claim stake as a stable
object.

The Vision looked straight at him without winking, and those
wonderful eyes filled with tears. Yet underneath their mist seemed to
sparkle little points of light, as wavelets through a vapour which veils
the surface of the sea. Bennington became conscious-stricken because
of the tears, and still he owned an uneasy suspicion that they were not
real.
"I'm so sorry!" she said contritely, after a moment; "I thought I was
helping you so much! I found that stake just streaking it over the top of
the hill. It had got loose and was running away." The mist had cleared
up very suddenly, and the light-tipped sparkles of fun were chasing
each other rapidly, as though impelled by a lively breeze. "I thought
you'd be ever so grateful, and, instead of that, you scold me! I don't
believe I like you a bit!"
She looked him over reflectively, as though making up her mind.
Bennington laughed outright, and scrambled to his feet. "You are
absolutely incorrigible!" he exclaimed, to cover his confusion at his
change of face.
Her eyes fairly danced.
"Oh, what a lovely word!" she cried rapturously. "What does it mean?
Something nice, or I'm sure you wouldn't have said it about me. Would
you?" The eyes suddenly became grave. "Oh, please tell me!" she
begged appealingly.
Bennington was thrown into confusion at this, for he did not know
whether she was serious or not. He could do nothing but stammer and
get red, and think what a ridiculous ass he was making of himself. He
might have considered the help he was getting in that.
"Well, then, you needn't," she conceded, magnanimously, after a
moment. "Only, you ought not to say things about girls that you don't
dare tell them in plain language. If you will say nice things about me,
you might as well say them so I can understand them; only, I do think
it's a little early in our acquaintance."

This cast Bennington still more in perplexity. He had a
pretty-well-defined notion that he was being ridiculed, but concerning
this, just a last grain of doubt remained. She rattled on.
"Well!" said she impatiently, "why don't you say something? Why don't
you take this stick? I don't want it. Men are so stupid!"
That last remark has been made many, many times, and yet it never
fails of its effect, which is at once to invest the speaker with daintiness
indescribable, and to thrust the man addressed into nether inferiority.
Bennington fell to its charm. He took the stake.
"Where does it belong?" he asked.
She pointed silently to a pile of stones. He deposited the stake in its
proper place, and returned to find her seated on the ground, plucking a
handful of the leaves of a little erect herb that grew abundantly in the
hollow. These she rubbed together and held to her face inside the
sunbonnet.
"Who are you, anyway?" asked Bennington abruptly, as he returned.
"D' you ever see this before?" she inquired irrelevantly, looking up with
her eyes as she leaned over the handful. "Good for colds. Makes your
nose feel all funny and prickly."
She turned her hands over and began to drop the leaves one by one.
Bennington caught himself watching her with fascinated interest in
silence. He began to find this one of her most potent charms--the
faculty of translating into a grace so exquisite as almost to realize the
fabled poetry of motion, the least shrug of her shoulders, the smallest
crook of her finger, the slightest toss of her small, well-balanced head.
She looked up.
"Want to smell?" she inquired, and held out her hands with a pretty
gesture.
Not knowing what else to do, Bennington stepped forward obediently

and stooped over. The two little palms held a single crushed bit of the
herb in their cup. They were soft, pink little palms, all wrinkled, like
crumpled rose leaves. Bennington stooped to smell the herb; instead, he
kissed the palms.
The girl sprang to her feet with one indignant motion