Your old man hasn't wasted any affection on me, and I can get along without him, all right, but I don't make trouble for girls if I can help it." The girl believed that he meant what he said; his words rang true, and he spoke seriously.

Moreover, Stark was known already in the camp as a man who did not go out of his way to make friends or to render an accounting of his deeds, so it was natural that when he made her a show of kindness Necia should treat him with less coldness than might have been expected.

The man had exercised an occult influence upon her from the time she first saw him at Lee's cabin, but it was too vague for definite feeling, and she had been too strongly swayed by Poleon and her father in their attitude towards him to be conscious of it.

Finding him now, however, in a gentle humor, she was drawn to him unwittingly, and felt an overweening desire to talk with him, even at the hazard of offending her own people.

The encounter fitted in with her rebellious mood, for there were things she wished to know, things she must find out from some one who knew the world and would not be afraid to answer her questions candidly.
"I'm going to build a big dance-hall and saloon here," said Stark, showing her the stakes that he had driven.