]
That is to say just as Steve Packard, climbing up from the other side,
thrust his head up above the top. An astonished grunt from Steve who
in the first start of the encounter came close to falling backward; a
little choking ejaculation from Terry whose eyes widened
wonderfully--and the two of them settled silently into their places on
the cedar and stared at each other. Some three or four feet only lay
between the brim of Steve's hat and Terry's upturned nose.
"Well?" demanded Terry stiffly.
"Well?" countered Steve.
He regarded her very gravely. He had never had a girl materialize this
way out of space and his own thoughts. This sudden confronting savored
of the supernatural; for the moment it set him aback and he was content
to stare wonderingly into the sweet gray eyes so near his own and to
take note of the curve of her lips, the redness of them, the dimple
which, though departed now and, he felt, in hiding, had left a hint of
itself behind in its hasty flight.
"If there's one thing I hate worse than a potato-bug," said Terry,
"it's a fresh guy! Think you're funny, don't you?"
"Fresh? Funny?"
He lifted his eyebrows. And then, her suspicion clear to him, his
gravity departed the way Terry's dimple had gone and he put back his
head and laughed. Laughed while the girl with deepening color and
darkening eyes looked at him indignantly.
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