"What are you watching for?" she demanded. "I don't like people who are afraid to show themselves."
"Well, I'll try to change that as quickly as I can," Lyster retorted, and circling the clump of bushes, he stood before her with his hat in his hand, looking smilingly audacious as she frowned on him.
But the frown faded as she looked; perhaps because 'Tana had never seen any one quite so handsome in all her life, or so fittingly and picturesquely dressed, for Mr. Maxwell Lyster was artist enough to make the most of his many good points and to exhibit them all with charming unconsciousness.
"I hope you will like me better here than across there," he said, with a smile that was contagious. "You see, I was too shy to come forward at first, and then I was afraid to interrupt your modeling. It is very good."
"You don't look shy," she said, combatively, and drew the clay image back, where he could not look at it. She was not at all sure that he was not laughing at her, and she covered her worn shoes with the skirt of her dress, feeling suddenly very poor and shabby in the light of his eyes. She had not felt at all like that when Overton looked at her in Akkomi's lodge.
"You would not be so unfriendly if you knew who I am," he ventured meekly. "Of course, I--Max Lyster--don't amount to much, but I happen to be Dan Overton's friend, and with your permission, I hope to continue with him to Sinna Ferry, and with you as well; for I am sure you must be Miss Rivers."
"If you're sure, that settles it, I suppose," she returned. "So he--he told you about me?"
"Oh, yes; we are chums, as you will learn. Then I was so fortunate as to see your brave swim after that child yesterday. You don't look any the worse for it."
"I suppose, now, you thought that little dip a welcome break in the monotony of camp-life, while you were waiting for Dan."
She looked at him in a quick, questioning way he thought odd.
"Oh--yes. While I was waiting for--Dan," she said in a queer tone, and bent her head over the clay image.
He thought her very interesting with her boyish air, her brusqueness, and independence. Yet, despite her savage surroundings, a certain amount of education was visible in her speech and manner, and her face had no stamp of ignorance on it.