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She had elicited the customary rough demand "Well, Yaller Top, what d'you want?" But this time she held her ground, though with quivering lips. "Yaller Top ain't my name 'tall," she explained with baby politeness. "It's Rosy-Lilly; 'n' I jes' thought you might want me to sit on yer knee a little, teeny minit." Much taken aback, McWha glanced about the room with a loutish grin.
But mebbe he'll let the hands keep her, to kinder chipper up the camp when things gits dull. I reckon when the boys sees her sweet face they'll all be wantin' to be guardeens to her." McWha again spat accurately into the crack of the grate. "I ain't got no fancy for young 'uns in camp, but ye kin do ez ye like, Walley Johnson," he answered grudgingly.
A dead branch, hurled through the air by the impact of a falling tree, struck Red McWha on the head, and he was carried home to the cabin unconscious, bleeding from a long gash in his scalp. The Boss, something of a surgeon in his rough and ready way, as bosses need to be, washed the wound and sewed it up.
"It's all alike they be, six, or sixteen, or sixty-six!" remarked McWha, sarcastically, stepping to the door. "I don't want none of 'em! Ye kin look out for 'er! I'm for the horses." "Don't talk out so loud," admonished the little one. "You'll wake Daddy. Poor Daddy's sick!" "Poor lamb!" murmured Johnson, folding her to his great breast with a pang of pity. "No; we won't wake daddy.
"If only he'd do something, so's we c'ld lick some decency inter 'im!" There was absolutely nothing to be done about it, however; for Red McWha was utterly within his rights. Rosy-Lilly, as we have seen, was not yet five years old; but certain of the characteristics of her sex were already well developed within her.
Then he handed over his own bunk to the wounded man, declaring optimistically that McWha would come round all right, his breed being hard to kill. It was hours later when McWha began to recover consciousness, and just then, as it happened, there was no one near him but Rosy-Lilly. Smitten with pity, the child was standing beside the bunk, murmuring: "Poor! poor!
Then, with lighter hearts, they went back to the cabin fire, which seemed to burn more freely now that the grim presence of its former master had been removed. "Now what's to be done with the kid with Rosy-Lilly?" began Johnson. Red McWha took his pipe from his mouth, and spat accurately into the crack of the grate to signify that he had no opinion on that important subject.
Rising up from his bench behind the stove he shouted out across the smoky room: "Shet up that, Red!" The song stopped. Every one looked inquiringly at Johnson. For several moments there was silence, broken only by an uneasy shuffling of feet. Then McWha got up slowly, his eyebrows bristling, his angry eyes little pin-points. First he addressed himself to Johnson.
And Rosy-Lilly began to feel a little aggrieved at the inadequate attention which she was now receiving from all but Jimmy Brackett and the ever-faithful Johnson. She began to forgive McWha, and once more to try her baby wiles upon him. But McWha was as coldly unconscious as a stone. One day, however, Fate concluded to range herself on Rosy-Lilly's side.
She merely consented to make him useful, much as she might a convenient and altogether doting but uninteresting grandmother. To all the other members of the camp except the Boss, whom she regarded with some awe she would make baby-love impartially and carelessly. But it was Red McWha whose notice she craved.
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