CHAPTER XXXIX
BILL'S WAY
"And, to think," whispered Mrs. Appleton as she wiped a tear from hereye, after the half-breed's departure, "that in New York this same manhad earned the name of 'Broadway Bill, the sport'!"
"Yes," answered her husband; "but Broadway Bill has passed, and in hisplace, out here in the big country, is Broadgauge Bill, the _man_! Iknew 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 laughedknowingly as her husband stooped and kissed her.
During the days that followed, Appleton and Sheridan, accompanied byBlood River Jack, hunted from early morning until late evening, whenthey would return, trail-weary and happy, to spend hours over thecleaning and oiling of guns and the overhauling of gear.
Young Charlie was allowed to go on some of the shorter expeditions, butfor 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 thetales of Daddy Dunnigan.
The ladies busied themselves with the care of the two rooms, withuseless needlework, and with dummy auction, varying the monotony withdaily excursions into the near-by forest in quest of spruce-gum andpine-cones.
Since the morning Charlie had broken in so incontinently upon theirbreakfast no reference had been made to Bill Carmody by any member ofthe 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 theycame 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, andretraced 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 returnedfor something she had forgotten.
Suddenly she became all attention, and a hot flush of anger mounted toher face as she saw her aunt walk to the table, pick up her purse andseveral rings which she had left, and with a glance at the thick, logwall which separated the room from the office, deliberately walk to hertrunk and place the articles under lock and key.
Apparently Mrs. Appleton had not noticed the girl's presence, but morethan once during the afternoon the corners of her mouth twitched when,in response to some question or remark of hers, the shortness of thegirl's replies bordered upon absolute rudeness.
And late that night she smiled broadly in the darkness when the lowsound of stifled sobs came from the direction of the girl's cot.
Immediately after breakfast the following morning, Ethel put on herwraps and started out alone. Arriving, after a long, aimless ramble, atthe outermost end of a skidway, she sat upon a log to rest and watch ahuge swamper who, unaware of her presence, was engaged in slashing theunderbrush 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 greatpine, for, striding rapidly toward her on the skidway was Bill Carmody,and she pressed still closer to the tree-trunk that he might passwithout observing her.
He was very close now, and the girl noticed the peculiar expression ofhis face--an expression she had seen there once before--his lips weresmiling, and his gray eyes were narrowed almost to slits.
The man halted scarcely fifty feet from her, at the place where theswamper, with wide blows of his axe, was laying the small saplings andbrushwood low. She started at the cold softness of the tones of hisvoice.
"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 forthe space of seconds the two big men faced each other on the packedsnow of the skidway.
Then, with a motion of incredible swiftness, and without apparenteffort, the foreman's right arm shot out and his fist landed squarelyupon the nose of the huge swamper.
The girl heard the wicked spat, and the peculiar, frightened grunt asthe man reeled backward, and saw the quick gush of red blood thatsplashed down his front and squirted out over the snow.
Before the man had time to recover, the foreman advanced a step andstruck again. This time it was his left hand that clove the air in along, clean swing, and the man went down into the snow without a soundas the fist thudded against his neck just below the ear.
Without so much as a glance at the man in the snow, Bill Carmody turnedon his heel and started back down the skidway.
Few seconds had elapsed, and a strange, barbaric thrill ran through thegirl's body as she looked out upon the scene, quickly followed by awave of sickening pity for the poor wretch who lay sprawled in thesnow.
And, then, a great anger surged into her heart against the man who hadfelled him. She dashed from her hiding-place, and in a moment stoodfacing 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 answeringa most commonplace question.
"Because," he replied, "I wanted to," and, with a curt bow, steppedinto the timber and disappeared, leaving her alone in the skidway withthe bloody, unconscious form in the snow.
Never in her life had Ethel Manton been so furiously angry--not becausea man had been felled by a blow--she had forgotten that--but because,in demanding an explanation, in attempting to call Bill Carmody toaccount, she had laid herself open to his stinging rebuff.
Without pretense of defense or justification, the man had quietly toldher that he knocked the swamper down "because he wanted to"; andwithout waiting for comment--as if the fact that "he wanted to" wassufficient in itself--had gone about his business without giving thematter a second thought.
The flash of anger, which in the first place had prompted her to speakto the man, was but an impulsive protest against what she considered anact of brutality; but that quickly passed.
The anger that surged through her heart as she gazed, white-faced, atthe spot where the big man disappeared, was the bitter anger ofoutraged dignity and injured pride.
He had not taken the trouble to find out what she thought, for the veryobvious reason that he had not cared what she thought--and so he lefther. And when he had gone the girl plodded wrathfully back to camp andspoke to no one of what she had seen. But, deep down in her heart, sheknew there had been a reason for Bill's act--and she knew that thereason was good.
That same evening Appleton pushed his chair back from the table andglanced toward Ethel, who had got out a bit of crochet-work. Then, witha sidewise glance at his wife, he remarked thoughtfully:
"I'm afraid I'll have to get rid of Bill. A Canuck swamper named Leduccomplained to me that the boss slipped up on him and knocked himinsensible 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 crimsonsuffused her face. She could have bitten her tongue off for speaking--fordefending this man.
"How do _you_ know?" asked her uncle in surprise.
"I saw him do it," she replied; realizing that, having gone so far, shemust answer.
"Why did he strike him?" persisted Appleton.
"You might ask _him_ that," she said and, with a defiant toss of herhead, quitted the room and closed the door behind her.
The Sheridans had been taken into confidence, and when the four foundthemselves alone they smiled knowingly.
As the days slipped into the second week of their stay, the carcassesof many deer hung from poles in the clearing, and the outside walls ofthe log building were adorned with the skins of numerous wolves andbobcats.
Hardly a day passed but some one, by word or look, or covert sneer,expressed disapproval of the boss; and Ethel, entirely ignorant of thefact that these expressions of disapproval were made only in herpresence, and for her special benefit, was conscious of a feeling ofgreat pity for the lonely man.
The indescribable restlessness of a great longing took possession ofher; she found herself, time and again, watching from the window, andfrom places of concealment behind the trunks of trees, while the bigforeman went stolidly about his work.
The fact that she should hate Bill Carmody was logical and proper; butshe bitterly resented the distrust and criticism of the others. Shewished 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 hisdefense.
Not since that morning on the skidway had the two met. Bill deviatednot one whit from the regular routine of his duties, and the girlpurposely avoided him.
She hated him. Over and over again she told herself that she hated anddespised him, and yet, on two or three occasions when she knew he hadgone to the farthest reaches of the cutting, she had slipped unobservedinto the office and read from his books--not the uncut novels--but thewell-thumbed copies of Browning and Southey; and as she read shepondered.
She came upon many marked passages; and in her heart the unrestcontinued, and she allowed her hands to stray over the coarse cloth ofhis mackinaw, and once she threw herself upon his bunk and buried herface in his blankets, and sobbed the dry, racking sobs of her deepsoul-hurt.
Then she had leaped to her feet and smoothed out the wrinkles in theblankets, and stooped and straightened the row of boots and moccasinsalong the base-log--and quickly disarranged them again for fear hemight remember how he left them--and rushed from the office.
Of these secret visits the members of the party knew nothing, but DaddyDunnigan, from the window of the cook-shack, took note of the girl'scomings and goings, and nodded sagely and chuckled to himself. ForDaddy Dunnigan, wise in the ways of women, had gathered much from thetalk of the impetuous youngster.
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