"I shall remember. Good night."
An hour later Dale walked into the Black Cat Tavern and made a ruinous bargain with Tate for the use of his horse and sled for an indefinite time. "I'm going up into the woods," he explained, "I may be gone a week, a month, I cannot tell; when I reach Camp 7, I'll send your rig back."
"Going to join Filmer, maybe?" Tate's little eyes rolled in their cushions of fat.
"Perhaps." And Tate took this as affirmation. Now that Joyce had rejoined her rightful lord and master—for the story had leaked out—it was quite natural that Gaston should take to the woods.
"It's one on 'im," Tate confided, as Brown Betty and the sled dashed by.
When Dale started out his purpose was very vague. If he reasoned at all it was to the effect that Jude, after Joyce rejoined him, would seek employment as near at hand as possible. It would be like his weak vanity to parade his victory by going to the men who had known of his defeat. Besides, if he had sent for Joyce, he must have been in the neighbourhood. The heavy storm, in any case, would hinder a long journey, and the men at Camp 7 might perhaps have news of Lauzoon either before or after Joyce had met him a day or so ago.
It had been a short time. He and Brown Betty were a better pair than Jude and a heavy-hearted woman. So Dale drove on toward Camp 7.
He tried to keep to the trail, once he struck the forests, but the snow was unbroken—the heaviest fall had occurred after Billy's return—and Brown Betty intelligently slackened her speed and felt her way gingerly through the darkness. It was still as death. Above the trees the stars pricked the sky, and the intense cold fell like a tangible thing upon the flesh exposed to it. Dale pulled his fur cap lower, and gladly let Betty have her will.