Very gravely we settled down side by side on the thick green grass.
"Now," she said, "I shall tell you why I wrote you to come out here.
Shall I?"
"By all means, Miss Blythe."
Sitting cross-legged, she gathered her ankles into her hands, settling
herself as snugly on the grass as a bird settles on its nest.
"The phenomena of nature," she said, "have always interested me
intensely, not only from the artistic angle but from the scientific point
of view.
"It is different with father. He is a painter; he cares only for the
artistic aspects of nature. Phenomena of a scientific nature bore him.
Also, you may have noticed that he is of a--a slightly impatient
disposition."
I had noticed it. He had been anything but civil to me when I arrived the
night before, after a five-hundred mile trip on a mule, from the nearest
railroad--a journey performed entirely alone and by compass, there being
no trail after the first fifty miles.
To characterize Blythe as slightly impatient was letting him down easy.
He was a selfish, bad-tempered old pig.
"Yes," I said, answering her, "I did notice a negligible trace of
impatience about your father."
She flushed.
"You see I did not inform my father that I had written to you. He doesn't
like strangers; he doesn't like scientists. I did not dare tell him that
I had asked you to come out here. It was entirely my own idea. I felt
that I _must_ write you because I am positive that what is happening in
this wilderness is of vital scientific importance."
"How did you get a letter out of this distant and desolate place?" I
asked.
"Every two months the storekeeper at Windflower Station sends in a man
and a string of mules with staples for us. The man takes our further
orders and our letters back to civilization."