"Hello!" he shouted. "That you, Nell?"
Susan drew back, her blood in a tumult. From below, after a
brief silence, came a burst of laughter.
She waited a long time, then through a shield of bunches of
grass looked again. The young man was gone. She wished that he
had resumed his song, for she thought she had never heard one so
beautiful. Because she did not feel safe in descending until he
was well out of the way, and because she was so comfortable
lying there in the afternoon sunshine watching the birds and
listening to them, she continued on there, glancing now and then
at where the creek entered and where it left her range of
vision, to make sure that no one else should come and catch her.
Suddenly sounded a voice from somewhere behind her:
"Hey, Nell! I'm coming!"
She sprang to her feet, faced about; and Crusoe was not more
agitated when he saw the print of the naked foot on his island's
strand. The straw hat with the flapping brim was just lifting
above the edge of the rock at the opposite side, where the path
was. She could not escape; the shelf offered no hiding place.
Now the young man was stepping to the level, panting loudly.
"Gee, what a climb for a hot day!" he cried. "Where are you?"
With that he was looking at Susan, less than twenty yards away
and drawn up defiantly. He stared, took off his hat. He had
close-cropped wavy hair and eyes as gray as Susan's own, but it
was a blue-gray instead of violet.
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