person, and which, although
here limited by eighteen years and one hundred pounds, still made a
demand for respectful treatment. Therefore the men, when in her
presence, never felt like calling her anything else than "Miss
Warriner." If she had been less like a stately damsel in miniature, and
more like such a child as she was in size only; if her employment had
been something not so near to science as that of telegraphy, and not so
far off from juvenile simplicity; if her brown hair had been loosely
curled, instead of closely coiled, and if her skirts had stopped at her
ankles instead of reaching to her feet, then she might have been
nicknamed "Mary Mite" within her own hearing, as she was beyond it, by
those who described her smallness in a sobriquet. There may have been a
variance of opinion among those dwellers at Overlook who had made any
estimate of her composure, but if there was one who believed that she
merely assumed a reserve of manner because she was among two hundred
men, he had not yet tried his chances of exceptional acquaintance.

Overlook was crude and temporary. The inhabitants were making a roadbed
for a new railway at a spot where the job was extraordinary, requiring
an uncommonly large proportion of brain to brawn in the work. Those who
were mental laborers in the remarkable feat of engineering, or were at
least bosses of the physical toil, were the ones who had errands at the
telegraphic shed, and for whom Mary sent and received messages over the
wires. The isolated colony of workers was one hundred miles deep in a
wilderness of mountain and forest, but not as many seconds distant,
measured by the time necessary for electrical communication from the
construction company's headquarters in a great city.

"Must you wait for an answer?" Mary said, as she clicked the last word
of a message. "It's an hour since your first telegram went, and they
seem in no hurry to reply."

Polite indifference, and nothing else, was in her clear, gentle voice.
There was neither boldness nor shyness in the eyes that opened wide and
blue, as she lifted them from the paper to the man whom she questioned.
There was no more of a smile than of a pout on the mouth that worded the
inquiry. She did not indicate the faintest interest as to whether he
went or stayed, although she did suggest that he might as well go.

"I'd rather lounge here, if you don't mind," was Gerald Heath's answer.

Here the alertness of the placid girl