It seemed a very long while before he reappeared, and thrust her in through what seemed to be a door. Then there was another waiting before the light of a lamp blinked out, and she saw that she was standing in a little log-walled room with bare floor and a few trusses of straw in a corner. There was also a rusty stove, and a very small pile of billets beside it. Witham, who had closed the door, stood looking at them with a curious expression.
“Where is the team?” she gasped.
“Heading for a birch bluff or Silverdale, though I scarcely think they will get there,” said the man. “I have never stopped here, and it wasn’t astonishing they fancied the place a pile of snow. While I was getting the furs out they slipped away from me.”
Miss Barrington now knew where they were. The shanty was used by the remoter settlers as a half-way house where they slept occasionally on their long journey to the railroad, and as there was a birch bluff not far away, it was the rule that whoever occupied it should replace the fuel he had consumed. The last man had, however, not been liberal.
“But what are we to do?” she asked, with a little gasp of dismay.
“Stay here until the morning,” said Witham quietly. “Unfortunately I can’t even spare you my company. The stable has fallen in, and it would be death to stand outside, you see. In the meanwhile, pull out some of the straw and put it in the stove.”
“Can you not do that?” asked Miss Barrington, feeling that she must commence at once, if she was to keep this man at a befitting distance.
Witham laughed. “Oh, yes, but you will freeze if you stand still, and these billets require splitting. Still, if you have special objections to doing what I ask you, you can walk up and down rapidly.”
The girl glanced at him a moment, and then lowered her eyes. “Of course I was wrong! Do you wish to hear that I am sorry?”
Witham, answering nothing, swung an axe round his head, and the girl, kneeling beside the stove, noticed the sinewy suppleness of his frame and the precision with which the heavy blade cleft the billets. The axe, she knew, is by no means an easy tool to handle. At last the red flame crackled, and though she had not intended the question to be malicious, there was a faint trace of irony in her voice as she asked, “Is there any other thing you wish me to do?”