Chapter 39

BILL'S WAY

"And, to think," whispered Mrs. Appleton as she wiped a tear from her eye, after the half-breed's departure, "that in New York this same man had earned the name of 'Broadway Bill, the sport'!"

"Yes," answered her husband; "but Broadway Bill has passed, and in his place, out here in the big country, is Broadgauge Bill, the _man_! I knew I was right, Margaret, by gad, I knew it! Look in his eye!"

Followed, then, in the little office, an hour of intimate conversation, at the conclusion of which the two arose.

"Not a word to Ethel, remember," admonished the woman, and laughed knowingly as her husband stooped and kissed her.

During the days that followed, Appleton and Sheridan, accompanied by Blood River Jack, hunted from early morning until late evening, when they would return, trail-weary and happy, to spend hours over the cleaning and oiling of guns and the overhauling of gear.

Young Charlie was allowed to go on some of the shorter expeditions, but for the most part he was to be found dogging the heels of Bill Carmody; or perched upon a flour-barrel in the cook-shack, listening to the tales of Daddy Dunnigan.

The ladies busied themselves with the care of the two rooms, with useless needlework, and with dummy auction, varying the monotony with daily excursions into the near-by forest in quest of spruce-gum and pine-cones.

Since the morning Charlie had broken in so incontinently upon their breakfast no reference had been made to Bill Carmody by any member of the party; while the foreman pursued the even tenor of his way, apparently as unconcerned by their existence as they were by his.

One afternoon as the ladies were starting upon one of their tramps they came face to face with the foreman, who tipped his cap, bowed coldly, and passed into the office, closing the door behind him.

Mrs. Appleton halted suddenly, glanced toward the building, and retraced her steps. It was but a short distance, and Ethel walked back, waiting at the door while her aunt entered their own apartment.

The girl watched abstractedly, thinking the older woman had returned for something she had forgotten.

Suddenly she became all attention, and a hot flush of anger mounted to her face as she saw her aunt walk to the table, pick up her purse and several rings which she had left, and with a glance at the thick, log wall which separated the room from the office, deliberately walk to her trunk and place the articles under lock and key.

Apparently Mrs. Appleton had not noticed the girl's presence, but more than once during the afternoon the corners of her mouth twitched when, in response to some question or remark of hers, the shortness of the girl's replies bordered upon absolute rudeness.

And late that night she smiled broadly in the darkness when the low sound of stifled sobs came from the direction of the girl's cot.

Immediately after breakfast the following morning, Ethel put on her wraps and started out alone. Arriving, after a long, aimless ramble, at the outermost end of a skidway, she sat upon a log to rest and watch a huge swamper who, unaware of her presence, was engaged in slashing the underbrush from in front of a group of large logs.

Finally, tiring of the sight, she arose and started for the clearing, and then suddenly drew back and stepped behind the bole of a great pine, for, striding rapidly toward her on the skidway was Bill Carmody, and she pressed still closer to the tree-trunk that he might pass without observing her.

He was very close now, and the girl noticed the peculiar expression of his face--an expression she had seen there once before--his lips were smiling, and his gray eyes were narrowed almost to slits.

The man halted scarcely fifty feet from her, at the place where the swamper, with wide blows of his axe, was laying the small saplings and brushwood low. She started at the cold softness of the tones of his voice.

"Leduc," he said, "just a minute--it will hardly take longer."

The man turned quickly at the sound of the voice at his side, and for the space of seconds the two big men faced each other on the packed snow of the skidway.

Then, with a motion of incredible swiftness, and without apparent effort, the foreman's right arm shot out and his fist landed squarely upon the nose of the huge swamper.

The girl heard the wicked spat, and the peculiar, frightened grunt as the man reeled backward, and saw the quick gush of red blood that splashed down his front and squirted out over the snow.

Before the man had time to recover, the foreman advanced a step and struck again. This time it was his left hand that clove the air in a long, clean swing, and the man went down into the snow without a sound as the fist thudded against his neck just below the ear.

Without so much as a glance at the man in the snow, Bill Carmody turned on his heel and started back down the skidway.

Few seconds had elapsed, and a strange, barbaric thrill ran through the girl's body as she looked out upon the scene, quickly followed by a wave of sickening pity for the poor wretch who lay sprawled in the snow.

And, then, a great anger surged into her heart against the man who had felled him. She dashed from her hiding-place, and in a moment stood facing him, her blue eyes flashing.

"You _brute_!" she cried, "what right had you? Why did you strike him?" The man regarded her gravely, lifting his cap politely as if answering a most commonplace question.

"Because," he replied, "I wanted to," and, with a curt bow, stepped into the timber and disappeared, leaving her alone in the skidway with the bloody, unconscious form in the snow.

Never in her life had Ethel Manton been so furiously angry--not because a man had been felled by a blow--she had forgotten that--but because, in demanding an explanation, in attempting to call Bill Carmody to account, she had laid herself open to his stinging rebuff.

Without pretense of defense or justification, the man had quietly told her that he knocked the swamper down "because he wanted to"; and without waiting for comment--as if the fact that "he wanted to" was sufficient in itself--had gone about his business without giving the matter a second thought.

The flash of anger, which in the first place had prompted her to speak to the man, was but an impulsive protest against what she considered an act of brutality; but that quickly passed.

The anger that surged through her heart as she gazed, white-faced, at the spot where the big man disappeared, was the bitter anger of outraged dignity and injured pride.

He had not taken the trouble to find out what she thought, for the very obvious reason that he had not cared what she thought--and so he left her. And when he had gone the girl plodded wrathfully back to camp and spoke to no one of what she had seen. But, deep down in her heart, she knew there had been a reason for Bill's act--and she knew that the reason was good.

That same evening Appleton pushed his chair back from the table and glanced toward Ethel, who had got out a bit of crochet-work. Then, with a sidewise glance at his wife, he remarked thoughtfully:

"I'm afraid I'll have to get rid of Bill. A Canuck swamper named Leduc complained to me that the boss slipped up on him and knocked him insensible with a club. I can't stand for that--not even from Bill."

At the mention of the foreman's name the girl looked up quickly.

"He _didn't_ hit him with a club! He hit him with his fist! And there _was_ a reason----" The girl stopped abruptly, and a wave of crimson suffused her face. She could have bitten her tongue off for speaking--for defending this man.

"How do _you_ know?" asked her uncle in surprise.

"I saw him do it," she replied; realizing that, having gone so far, she must answer.

"Why did he strike him?" persisted Appleton.

"You might ask _him_ that," she said and, with a defiant toss of her head, quitted the room and closed the door behind her.

The Sheridans had been taken into confidence, and when the four found themselves alone they smiled knowingly.

As the days slipped into the second week of their stay, the carcasses of many deer hung from poles in the clearing, and the outside walls of the log building were adorned with the skins of numerous wolves and bobcats.

Hardly a day passed but some one, by word or look, or covert sneer, expressed disapproval of the boss; and Ethel, entirely ignorant of the fact that these expressions of disapproval were made only in her presence, and for her special benefit, was conscious of a feeling of great pity for the lonely man.

The indescribable restlessness of a great longing took possession of her; she found herself, time and again, watching from the window, and from places of concealment behind the trunks of trees, while the big foreman went stolidly about his work.

The fact that she should hate Bill Carmody was logical and proper; but she bitterly resented the distrust and criticism of the others. She wished now with all her heart that she had not confided in her aunt, and a dozen times she caught herself on the point of rushing to his defense.

Not since that morning on the skidway had the two met. Bill deviated not one whit from the regular routine of his duties, and the girl purposely avoided him.

She hated him. Over and over again she told herself that she hated and despised him, and yet, on two or three occasions when she knew he had gone to the farthest reaches of the cutting, she had slipped unobserved into the office and read from his books--not the uncut novels--but the well-thumbed copies of Browning and Southey; and as she read she pondered.

She came upon many marked passages; and in her heart the unrest continued, and she allowed her hands to stray over the coarse cloth of his mackinaw, and once she threw herself upon his bunk and buried her face in his blankets, and sobbed the dry, racking sobs of her deep soul-hurt.

Then she had leaped to her feet and smoothed out the wrinkles in the blankets, and stooped and straightened the row of boots and moccasins along the base-log--and quickly disarranged them again for fear he might remember how he left them--and rushed from the office.

Of these secret visits the members of the party knew nothing, but Daddy Dunnigan, from the window of the cook-shack, took note of the girl's comings and goings, and nodded sagely and chuckled to himself. For Daddy Dunnigan, wise in the ways of women, had gathered much from the talk of the impetuous youngster.