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.