The Tenderfoots by Francis Lynde

IN circumstances in which it would have been easy enough to fail, Philip found the family he was looking for almost at once; and it was the young woman with the dark eyes and hair and the enticing Southland voice and accent who slipped between the flaps of the lighted tent when he made his presence known.

"Oh, Mr. Trask -- is it you? " she exclaimed, as the dim lamplight filtering through the canvas enabled her to recognize him. "This is kind of you, I'm sure. We've been wondering if we should ever see you again. I can't imagine how you were ever able to find us."

Philip, rejoicing in the softly smothered "r's" of her speech, explained soberly. It was not so difficult. He had gone first to the hotel; and once in the tented square, a few inquiries had sufficed.

"I'm sorry I can't ask you in," she hastened to say. "You see, there isn't so awfully much room in a tent, and -- and the children are just going to bed. Would you mind sitting out here?"

There was a bench on the board platform that served as a dooryard for the tent, and they sat together on that. For the first few minutes Philip had an attack of self-consciousness that made him boil inwardly with suppressed rage. His human contacts for the past few weeks -- or months, for that matter -- had been strictly masculine, and he had never been wholly at ease with women, save those of his own family. Stilted inquiries as to how the sick Captain was getting along, and how they all liked Denver and the West, and how they thought the climate and the high altitude were going to agree with them, were as far as he got before a low laugh, with enough mockery in it to prick him sharply, interrupted him.

"Excuse me," she murmured, "but it's so deliciously funny to see you make such hard work of it. Are there no girls in the part of Yankeeland you come from?"

"Plenty of them," he admitted; "but they are not like you."

"Oh! " she laughed. "Is that a compliment, or the other thing?"

"It is just the plain truth. But the trouble isn't with girls -- it's with me. I guess I'm not much of a ladies' man."

"I'm glad you're not; I can't imagine anything more deadly. Are you still working for the railroad?"

"Just at present, yes. But I'll be quitting in a few days. I'm going to try my luck in the mountains -- prospecting."

"But -- I thought you said you wouldn't!"

"I did; but I was younger then than I am now."

She laughed again. "All of six weeks younger. But I'm glad you are going. If the Captain could get well, and I were a man, I'd go, too."

Philip was on the point of saying that he wished she were a man and would go with him; but upon second thought he concluded he didn't wish it. Before he could straighten out the tangle of the first and second thoughts she was asking him if he knew anything about minerals and mining.

"Nothing at all. But others who don't know any more than I do are going, and some of them are finding what they hoped to find."

"It's in the air," she said. "You hear nothing but ‘strikes' and ‘leads' and ‘mother veins' and ‘bonanzas. ' Lots of the people in these tents around us are here because some member of the family is sick, but they all talk excitedly about the big fortunes that are being made, and how Tom or Dick or Harry has just come in with a haversack full of ‘the pure quill,' whatever that may mean."

"You haven't been hearing any more of it than I have," said Philip. "Not as much, I think. The town is mad with the mining fever. I'm only waiting until I can find a suitable partner."

"That ought not to be very hard -- with everybody wanting to go."

Philip shook his head. "I guess I'm not built right for mixing with people. I can't seem to chum in with just anybody that comes along."