"I drew back into a shallow niche of the rock. I had not forgotten the first impression I made on the woman up the Duckabush and had no desire to 'scare ladies.' But my steamer was almost due, and I hoped John would come soon. Getting no reply from him, she rose and glanced around. Then she looked at her watch, put her hand to her mouth, and sent a long call up the gorge. 'Joh-n. Joh-n, hello!' She had a carrying, singer's voice, but it brought no answer, so after a moment she gathered up her things and started towards the bank. I watched her disappear among the trees; then, my fear of missing the steamer growing stronger than the dread of terrifying her, I followed. The trail drops precipitously around the lower falls, you remember, and I struck the level where the river bends at the foot of the cataract, with considerable noise. I found myself in a sort of open-air parlor flanked by two tents; rustic seats under a canopy of maple boughs, hammocks, a percolator bubbling on a sheet-iron contrivance over the camp-fire coals, and, looking at me across a table, the girl. 'I beg your pardon,' I hurried to say. 'Don't be afraid of me.' "'Afraid?' she repeated. 'Afraid--of you?' And the way she said it, with a half scornful, half humorous surprise, the sight of her standing there so self-reliant, buoyant, the type of that civilization I had tried so hard to reach, started a reaction of my overstrained nerves. Still, I think I might have held myself together had I not at that moment caught the voice of that unhappy squaw. It struck a chill to my bones, and I sank down on the nearest seat and dropped my face in my hands, completely unmanned. "I knew she came around the table and stood looking me over, but when I finally managed to lift my head, she had gone back to the percolator to bring me a cup of coffee. It had a pleasant aroma, and the cream with which she cooled it gave it a nice color. You don't know how that first draught steadied me. 'I am sorry, madam,' I said, 'but I have had a hard experience in these woods, and I expected to catch the mail boat for Seattle; but that singing down-stream means I am cut off.' "She started a little and looked me over again with new interest. 'The squaw,' she said, 'is mourning for her papoose. It was a terrible accident. A young hunter up the Dosewallups, where the Indians were berrying, killed the baby in jumping a log.' "'Yes, madam,' I answered, and rose and put the cup down, 'I am the man. It is harder breaking trail to the Lilliwaup than coming by canoe, and the Indians have beaten me. I must double back now to the Duckabush. By that time, they will have given up the watch.'