In an instant Keith McBain was himself again. Leaping up before the men had come within speaking distance he met them in the pathway and fell upon them with a flow of profanity that not only reduced the two to impotent silence but sent them back along the pathway and up the trail to the camp, the picture of mute dejection and defeat.
When the old contractor returned and took his seat again, he lighted his pipe in bad mood and puffed at it vigorously without speaking a word. It required only a glance at his face to realize that a change had come over him. Keith McBain was Old Silent again and nothing would bring him out of his surly mood.
King got up slowly and started down the footpath that led to the hills back of the cabin. Somewhere back in the shambles of pitched timbers and broken tree-trunks was Cherry McBain. When he came finally to where the path was so dimly marked that he could follow it no farther he climbed to the top of a little knoll and looked in every direction along the face of the hill to see if Cherry were anywhere in sight. Finally, when he had looked for some time in vain, he called and waited until the echoes died away in silence. There was no reply. Getting down from the knoll he scrambled further up the hill. He had seen a patch of grey ground away to the west where the fires of the year before had swept the hills clear of vegetation. In ten minutes he emerged from the cover of the evergreens and looked across the tangled mass of half-burned and fallen timbers. The climb had not been an easy one, and it was only with slight hope that he gave his call again and stood tense and motionless as he listened for a reply. From every side the echoes came back and gradually died away in faint waves that finally settled into stillness. He was about to turn back again and make for the camp, but just once more he called and waited.
Almost immediately and from a surprisingly short distance away Cherry's voice came clear to him across the patch of grey. Turning at once in the direction of the voice he looked and saw her waving her hand to him. In a few moments he was beside her, where she was seated on the ground picking twigs and leaves out of the small pail of berries she held in her lap. She looked up at him and laughed roguishly, then offered him a large red berry which she held up to him between stained finger and thumb.
"Didn't you hear me call the first time?" he asked her.
She dropped her eyes and seemed very intent upon rolling the berries about in a vain search for more leaves. He waited for her answer. Ordinarily he would not have asked the question seriously. Even now he had no thought of accusing her. When she finally spoke he was at a loss to know what was in her mind.
"I—heard—you," she said, very slowly, and the tone of her voice was strange to King.
He waited, not knowing what to say in return, and hoping, too, that she might say something without his prompting her. When he saw that she was not going to speak, he asked another question as directly as he had asked the first.
"Why didn't you answer?"
The next moment he wished with all his heart that he had not spoken. The look she gave him was one in which appeal and disappointment were so deeply mingled that he cursed himself inwardly for his own clumsiness.