"I've been trying myself to learn to shoot during the last week," he began
soberly. "I haven't been able yet to hit anything but the side of a barn.
Say, I'm wondering, suppose I had tried to shoot at those birds just now
and had missed, whether you wouldn't have laughed at me--quietly, all to
yourself, you know. Are you quite sure?"
The girl looked up at him solemnly without saying a word for a full
minute.
"Was what I said as bad as that?" she asked slowly.
"I'm afraid it was," he answered thoughtfully; "but I was a blamed idiot
for laughing at you. A girl that shoots like that may locate the Desert of
Sahara in Canada if she likes, and Canada ought to be proud of the honor."
She looked into his face for an instant, and noted his earnestness; and
all at once she broke into a clear ripple of laughter. The young man was
astonished anew that she had understood him enough to laugh. She must be
unusually keen-witted, this lady of the desert.
"If 'twas as bad as that," she said in quite another tone, "you c'n
laugh."
They looked at each other then in mutual understanding, and each fell to
eating his portion in silence. Suddenly the man spoke.
"I am eating your food that you had prepared for your journey, and I have
not even said, 'Thank you' yet, nor asked if you have enough to carry you
to a place where there is more. Where are you going?"
The girl did not answer at once; but, when she did, she spoke
thoughtfully, as if the words were a newly made vow from an impulse just
received.
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