I suppose they're rough customers; but they must have a good deal of
character."
She did not quite know what he meant by having a good deal of character;
but his tone was expressive of admiration, and deepened her dawning
curiosity. It struck her now as strange that she knew so little about
the Mountain. She had never asked, and no one had ever offered to
enlighten her. North Dormer took the Mountain for granted, and implied
its disparagement by an intonation rather than by explicit criticism.
"It's queer, you know," he continued, "that, just over there, on top of
that hill, there should be a handful of people who don't give a damn for
anybody."
The words thrilled her. They seemed the clue to her own revolts and
defiances, and she longed to have him tell her more.
"I don't know much about them. Have they always been there?"
"Nobody seems to know exactly how long. Down at Creston they told me
that the first colonists are supposed to have been men who worked on the
railway that was built forty or fifty years ago between Springfield
and Nettleton.
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