“No, 'tain't—hit's my step-mammy. I'm a goin' to ketch hell now.”        Her innocent eyes turned sullen and her baby mouth tightened.     

       “Good Lord!” said the fisherman, startled, and then he stopped—the words were as innocent on her lips as a benediction.     

       “Have you got a father?” Like a flash, her whole face changed.     

       “I reckon I have.”      

       “Where is he?”      

       “Hyeh he is!” drawled a voice from the bushes, and it had a tone that made the fisherman whirl suddenly. A giant mountaineer stood on the bank above him, with a Winchester in the hollow of his arm.     

       “How are you?” The giant's heavy eyes lifted quickly, but he spoke to the girl.     

       “You go on home—what you doin' hyeh gassin' with furriners!”      

       The girl shrank to the bushes, but she cried sharply back:     

       “Don't you hurt him now, Dad. He ain't even got a pistol. He ain't no—”      

       “Shet up!” The little creature vanished and the mountaineer turned to the fisherman, who had just put on a fresh minnow and tossed it into the river.     

       “Purty well, thank you,” he said shortly. “How are you?”      

       “Fine!” was the nonchalant answer. For a moment there was silence and a puzzled frown gathered on the mountaineer's face.     

       “That's a bright little girl of yours—What did she mean by telling       you not to hurt me?”      

       “You haven't been long in these mountains, have ye?”      

       “No—not in THESE mountains—why?” The fisherman looked around and was almost startled by the fierce gaze of his questioner.     

       “Stop that, please,” he said, with a humourous smile. “You make me nervous.”      

       The mountaineer's bushy brows came together across the bridge of his nose and his voice rumbled like distant thunder.     

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