Gordon sat silent a moment or two. He knew, though she very rarely mentioned it, how heavy was the burden that had been laid upon her, and he was divided between a great pity for her and anger against her father. Then he rose slowly to his feet.
“Miss Waynefleet,” he said, “if I have said anything that hurt you, I’m sorry, but there are times when I must talk. I feel I have to. In the meanwhile I’ll heave those logs up on a skid so that you can slip the chain round them.”
For the next half-hour he exerted himself savagely, and when at last he dropped the handspike, his face was damp with perspiration. He smiled grimly when Laura, who had hauled one or two of the logs away, came back tapping the plodding oxen.
“Now,” he said, “I’m going in to see your father. Custer happened to tell me he was feeling low again, and it’s going to afford me a good deal of pleasure to prescribe for him.”
He swung off his wide hat, and, when he turned away, Laura wondered with a few misgivings what had brought the little snap into his eyes. Three or four minutes later he entered the house, where Waynefleet lay beside the stove with a cigar in his hand.
“I ran across Custer at the settlement, and I came along to see how you were keeping,” said Gordon.
Waynefleet held out a cigar-box. “Make yourself comfortable,” he answered hospitably. “We’ll have dinner a little earlier than usual.”
The sight of the label on the box came near rousing Gordon to an outbreak of indignation. “I’m not going to stay,” he declared. “It seems to me Miss Waynefleet has about enough to do already.”
He saw Waynefleet raise his eyebrows, and he added: 94 “I guess it’s not worth while troubling to point out that it’s not my affair. Now, if you’ll get ahead with your symptoms.”
Waynefleet looked hard at him for a moment. The older man was not accustomed to being addressed in that brusque fashion, and it jarred upon him, but, as a matter of fact, he was not feeling well, and, as he not infrequently pointed out, he had discovered that one had to put up with many unpleasant things in that barbarous country. He described his symptoms feelingly, and was rather indignant when Gordon expressed neither astonishment nor sympathy.