“If I was a ha’nt,” growled the chopping-boss, “and had my pick, I reckon I’d have shown better judgment.” His remark was under his breath, and the girl did not hear it. She clung to Wade. Her agitation communicated itself to him. A sense of calamity told him that there was trouble deeper than the disappearance of the waif of the Skeet tribe.
Her words confirmed his suspicion. “My God, what are we going to do, Mr. Wade?” she sobbed. “I planned it; I encouraged her. It was wild, imprudent, reckless. I ought to have realized it. But I knew how you felt towards her. I wanted to help her and—and you!”
Something in the horror of her wide-open eyes told him plainly now that this could not be merely the question of the loss of one of the Skeets. And with that conviction growing out of bewildered doubt, he went with her when she led him away towards the office camp. A suspicion wild as a nightmare flashed into his mind. In the wangan she faced him, as woe-stricken, as piteously afraid, as though she were confessing a crime against him.
“It was John Barrett’s daughter Elva on that team with me,” she choked. “She wanted to come—but I’ll be honest with you, Mr. Wade. She wouldn’t have come if I hadn’t encouraged her—yes, put the idea into her head and the means into her hands. I’ve been a fool, Mr. Wade, but I’ll not be a coward and lie about my responsibility.”
He gazed at her, his face ghastly white in the lantern-light.
“She wanted to—she was coming here—she is lost?” he mumbled, as though trying to fathom a mystery.
Infinite pity replaced the distraction in the girl’s face.
“Forgive me, Mr. Wade!” she cried. “Not for my folly—you can’t overlook that. Forgive me for wasting time. But I didn’t know how to say it to you.” She put her woman’s weakness from her, though the struggle was a mighty one, and her face showed it. “I won’t waste any more words, Mr. Wade. John Barrett has been at my father’s house for weeks. He has been near death—he is near death now, but the big doctors from the city say that he will get well. He must have been through some terrible trouble up here.”
She looked at him with questioning gaze, as though to ask how much he knew of the strain that had prostrated John Barrett, the stumpage king.
“He was in great danger—and his exposure—” stammered Wade.