"Now tell me, so true as you live, what was you going down to St. Angé for?"
"I was going down to"—Jude hesitated. "Well, I was tired of being hounded, and having to hide and starve. I was going down to get—what—I could—and no questions asked." A foolish laugh followed. Beside Jared's subtlety, Jude seemed a babbling infant with feeble aims.
Jared was contemptuous.
"Gosh darn it, Jude! It's good I fell across your path again. You might have thrown away the one, great, shining opportunity of your life. Listen to my plans. You better stay where you are, and let me run this here show. I got the tracks all laid out. I'm sort o' inspired where it comes to plotting for them I love. I'm going to write a touching letter to her. It's going to state that Gaston is laid up from an accident in a hut, further up to the north. A lumberman is going to write the letter—catch on? and she's wanted up to Gaston's dying bedside. The lumberman is going to meet her at Laval's. When she's caught safe and sure, Jock Filmer—he's the go-between in all this—will get that information, or the part about her going away, to Gaston; then the game's in our hands. If Gaston means business, he'll pay what we say. If he ain't sharp set as to a big figger, we've got Joyce; and by thunder! who's got a better right? Then we'll make tracks, after the spring freshet, to another place I know of where laws is stationary and folks ain't over keen, and where a handsome woman like Joyce will help. I've got money enough left from the wreck to tide us over, my son—unless Gaston planks down."
All this completed Billy's demoralization. His teeth chattered louder, and for the life of him he could not control an audible sound, half sob, half sigh. But Jude was evidently as much overpowered as Billy, for the boy suddenly heard him emit an oath, and then a volley of questions designed to clear the air after Jared's storm of eloquence.
"She'll come, all right." Jared had his answers ready. "It's an all-fired queer state of things down there to St. Angé. You and me ain't never struck Gaston's kind before. Joyce'll go when he calls, and don't you forget it—all I've got to do is to make the lumberman's letter real convincing.
"Sure! I'm the lumberman, all right. Camp up north? Nothing. I'll land her here where her rightful and loving husband will be waiting for her till further developments. How did I find out the lay of the land? Gosh! that was a tight squeeze. I found out he was over to Hillcrest, Gaston you know; and I run up, after dark to his shack, planning to get a haul from Joyce. I got into the back kitchen while she was outside, and before I could get away—in walks Gaston. What I saw and heard that evening, Jude, ain't necessary here, but it blazed our trail, boy, and I cut later—taking more than I planned for." Birkdale breathed hard. "You leave Gaston to me, curse 'im!
"Make trouble for us? How in thunder is a man to make trouble for a husband who is taking his own wife to his dishonoured bosom? Lord! Jude, you've got about as much backbone as an angle worm.
"What?" Some muttered words followed that Billy could not catch. Then—
"Trust me! Does any one know to this day, you blamed fool, who shot that government detective that was snooping into that clearing you and me made—five years back? Gaston'll pay or you'll take one of them never-failing shots of yours, and——"