"If I do seem so, it may be because the past teaches me that the best way to avoid quarrels is to avoid intimacies. You know how we last parted in that gambling-room. I had no business to be there, I admit; but that was no excuse for your treatment."
"Treatment! Why, Elwood, is it possible you have been under a misapprehension about that, all this time?" responded Gaut, with that peculiar wheedling manner which he so well knew how to assume when he wished to carry his point with another. "My object then was to save the money for you and me, so that we could divide it satisfactorily between ourselves. I was angry enough at those other fellows, whom I saw getting all your money in that way, I confess; and, in what I said, I was whipping them over your shoulders. I thought you understood it."
"I didn't understand it in that way," replied Elwood, surprised and evidently staggered at the bold and unexpected statement. "I didn't take you so: could that be all you intended?"
"Certainly it was," resumed Gaut, in the same insinuating tone. "Had I supposed it necessary, I should have seen you and explained it at the time. But it is explained now; so let it go, and every thing go that has been unpleasant between us; let us forget all, and henceforth be on good terms. Our children, as you may have suspected, seem intent on being friends; and why should not we be friends also? It will be a gratification to them, and we can easily make it the means of benefiting each other. You know how much I once did in helping you to property,—I can do so again, if we will but understand each other. What say you, Elwood? Will you establish the treaty, and give me your hand upon it?"
Elwood trembled as the other bent his fascinating gaze upon him, hesitated, began to demur feebly; but, being artfully answered, soon yielded and extended his hand, which Gaut seized and shook heartily; when at the suggestion of the latter they separated and proceeded by different courses, so that they might not be seen together, to join the company at the house, whom they found, as they expected, in consultation about the proposed trapping and hunting expedition to the upper lakes, the time of starting, and the names and number of those volunteering to join the association, only remaining to be fixed and ascertained. That time was finally fixed on the 15th of September, and the company was formed to consist of the two Elwoods, Phillips, Gurley, Codman, and such others as might thereafter wish to join them. This being settled, they broke up and departed for their respective homes.
CHAPTER X.
"All good to me is lost;
Evil, be thou my good"—
The next scene in the slowly unfolding panorama of our story opens at the house of Gaut Gurley, on the banks of the Magalloway. Gaut reached home, on the evening of the logging bee, about sunset; and, having put out his team, entered his house, where he found his wife alone, his daughter being absent on a visit to a neighbor. Contrary to what might have been expected, after the favorable impression he had so evidently made on the settlers that day, and the attainment of the still more important object with him, the regaining of his old fatal influence over Elwood, he appeared morose and dissatisfied. Something had not worked to his liking in the complicated machinery of his plans, and he showed his vexation so palpably as soon to attract the attention of his submissive but by no means unobservant wife, who, after a while, plucked up the courage to remark:
"What is the case, Gaut? Have you been working yourself to death for those Elwoods, to-day, or has something gone wrong with you, that makes you look so sour this evening?"
"I have worked hard enough, God knows; but that I intended, for I had objects in view, most of which I think I have accomplished, but—"