"I do! I do!" He turned and left them, striding
toward the lower level. Then:

"The fool!" she exclaimed viciously; "my arm
is all black and blue where he pinched it. My skin
is not like the hides on these mountain girls, it tears
and bruises dreadfully easy, it's so fine. Let's go
back there," she pointed to where, behind the platform
and counter, a path was trampled through
brush higher than their heads. Gordon glanced
swiftly in the direction in which Buckley Simmons
had vanished. "He won't be back," she added contemptuously,
"for a half-hour. He'll stay down
there and drink rotten whiskey and sputter over rotten
stories." Without further parley she proceeded
in the direction indicated; and, following her, Gordon
dismissed Buckley from his thoughts.

Meta Beggs wore a shirtwaist perforated like a
sieve; through it he saw flimsy lace, a faded blue
ribband, her gleaming shoulders. In an obscure
turn of the path she stopped and faced him. "Just
look," she proclaimed, unfastening a bone button
that held her cuff. She rolled her sleeve back over
her arm. High up, near the soft under-turning,
were visible the bluish prints of fingers. "You
see," she added; "and there are others... where
I can't show you."

"Buck's pretty vigorous with the girls," he admitted;
"I once dropped him down a spell for it."

[[192]]

p191 _ -chap- _ toc-1 _ p192w _ toc-2 _ +chap+ _ p193

v?