But she appeared to be dreaming a little herself. At any rate, the scene she had passed through in the tent left memories too dark with feeling to be quickly dispelled, and he noticed at once the change in her face, and the traces of tears left about her eyes.
"Oh! So you leave here jolly enough, and run around to camp, and cry about nothing--do you?" he asked, with evident unbelief. "Were you crying for joy over those little grains of gold--or over your loneliness in being so far from the Ferry folks?"
She laughed at the mere idea of either--and laughter dispels tear traces so quickly from faces that are young. "Lonely!" she exclaimed: "lonely here? why, I feel a heap more satisfied here than down at the Ferry, where the whole place smelled like saw-mills and new lumber. I always had a grudge against saw-mills, for they spoil all the lovely woods. That is why I like all this," and she made a sweep of her arm, embracing all the territory in sight; "for in here not a tree has been touched with an ax. Lonely here! Why, Dan, I've been so perfectly happy that I'm afraid--yes, I am. Didn't you ever feel like that--just as if you were too happy to last, and you were afraid some trouble would come and end it all?"
But Overton stooped to lift the pick he had been using, and so turned his face away from her.
"Well, I'm glad you are not getting blue over lack of company," he remarked; "for we have only commenced prospecting, you know, and it will be at least a week before we can hope to send for any one else to join us."
"A week! Do you intend to send for other folks, then?" and her tone was one of regret. "Oh, it would be all different, then. My pretty camp would be spoiled for me if folks should come talking and whistling up our creek. Don't let any one know so soon!"
"You don't know what you are talking of," he answered, a little roughly. "This is a business trip. We did not come up here just because we were looking for a pretty picture of a place to camp in."
"Oh!" and surprise and dismay were in the exclamation. "Then you don't care for it--you want other people just as soon as you find the rich streak where the gold is? Well"--and she looked again over their little chosen valley--"I almost hope you won't find it very soon--not for several days. I would like to live just like this for a whole week. And I thought--I was so sure you liked it, too."