"Who said anything about bein' friends?" "I want to be your friend." The sincerity of this balked the girl and her eyes became puzzled. "I want to be your friend and want you for my friend. We can help each other in a good many ways." "I don't recollect askin' for your help." "No, but I want to give it to you and I want to ask yours in return. We are here in a big country. We are all dependent to an extent on those about us. None of us can get along so well alone as we can by working together." "Like turnin' folks out in the rain at night, for instance?" Jane's cheeks flamed. "I don't understand," she said. "Think it over an' maybe you will!" The girl's eyes blazed uncovered hate, but as they took Jane in again from hat to boots a curious envy showed in them. "I've seen how much you big outfits want to help poor folks before," she said. "I know all about that,"--bitterly. "Maybe it's a good thing you come here today so you'll get to understand, first hand, instead of sendin' your men around to learn things for you. "We've come a long ways. We've been on th' move ever since I can recollect. Folks have offered to help us before, an' they have helped us ... to decide to move. We've come to stay here; we can take care of ourselves; we don't ask nothin' but to be let alone, an' we're goin' to be let alone if we have to make it stick with gun play." She had advanced and, hands on her hips, weight on one foot, spoke the last with her face close to Jane's, her head nodding in slow emphasis. "I trust it won't come to that," Jane said evenly. She had not flinched, but studied the girl carefully, impersonally, though the color in her cheeks had died; her face was in repose, her bearing dignified and assured, yet without suggestion of any superficial superiority. "If it does come to that it will not be because I am unwilling to do all that is reasonable. I have come down here to talk to you, which should be evidence of my good faith; I have been frank. You meet me as though I had come to cheat you or drive you out. I don't think that is fair." The other drew back a step, clearly puzzled again. Her face, in spite of its forbidding expression, was very beautiful. "That sounds all right," she said at length, "but I've heard it before and I know how much it's worth. You ain't my kind. You don't belong here and I do. You don't want to be my friend ... you wouldn't know how. "All we want is to be let alone. Our business ain't yours an' we won't try to make yours ours. Have you said all you wanted to say?" "No, not quite all, but if you won't listen to me, if you won't believe me, there is only one more thing I can say: You will know where to find me any time you want to talk to me. I will be ready to work with you, to do my share, and maybe a little more. I hope there will be no trouble, for it would force me to make my share of that." She turned abruptly and walked toward Beck.