XII
THE MAJOR'S BEAR
Darkness had closed down on the hillside, and supper was over, when Ingleby and Leger lounged on a cedar log outside the shanty. Hetty lay close by in the deer-hide chair, and Tomlinson had stretched his long limbs just clear of the fire. He lay placidly smoking, with no more than an occasional deferential glance at Hetty. Now and then the flickering firelight touched his face and showed the harsh lines of its rugged chiselling and the steadiness of his contemplative eyes. Tomlinson, it was generally admitted, could do more with axe and shovel than most of the men in that valley, but a certain deliberateness of speech and gesture characterized him in repose. He was a man who worked the harder when it was necessary because he seldom wasted an effort.
It was slowly he raised his head and glanced at Hetty. "The boys can get away with another twenty loaves this week," he said. "Jake figured you'd have seven or eight more of them from the gully workings coming in. They told him they'd no use for flapjacks or grindstones when they could get bread like that."
"Very well," said Hetty. "I'll have an extra batch ready on Saturday."
She cast a little quick glance at Ingleby, for it was gratifying that he should have this testimony to the quality of her bakery, though it was scarcely necessary. The venture had, in fact, been a success from the commencement, and though Hetty's flour was rapidly running out she found it just as profitable to bake what the miners brought her at a tariff which in few other regions would have been thought strictly moderate. She was also as popular as her bread, for she turned nobody away, though there were men in that valley with neither money nor provisions left who had failed to find even the colour of gold. Her boys, she said, would strike it rich some day, and one must risk a little now and then; but it is not given to many women to win the faith and homage accorded her by most of them in return for a handful of flour. Tomlinson, however, had not delivered all his message yet.
"I ran up against Wolverine Gordon yesterday," he said. "He wants more salt in his bread. Says that sweet dough's ruining his digestion, and if you can't fix it to suit him he'll do his own baking. I guess I'd let the old insect have his salt by the handful."
Hetty laughed good-humouredly. "I must try to please him."
Tomlinson watched her with grave, reflective eyes. "Gordon was 'most glad to eat cedar bark not long ago," he said. "Did you ever get a dollar out of him?"
"That," said Hetty quietly, "is not your business, Mr. Tomlinson."
The long-limbed miner apparently ruminated over this.