Big Jack laughed a harsh note.
"You fools!" he said. "Both of you. What do you think you're going to do so big? She's given us an answer sooner than we expected, that's all. If she prefers a cook to a man, that's her affair. All we got to do is shut up. I'm going back to the shack."
They would not confess the reasonableness of Jack's words. "Go where you like," muttered Shand. "I'll stick by myself."
Jack strode back along the path. Joe followed him, merely because he was one of those natures who will choose an enemy's company sooner than face the prospect of being left with his own.
They left Shand to his own devices. Husky greeted them with eager questions. Joe cursed him, and Jack clenched his teeth upon the stem of his pipe in grim silence.
They revived the fire and sat in front of it. Each man was jealous of his own rage and pain and refused to share it. Joe and Husky bickered in a futile way. Big Jack, in spite of his philosophic protestations, kept the tail of an eye on the whitening window-pane. In the end he rose abruptly. Joe followed suit as a matter of course.
Jack turned on him, snarling. "Have I got to be followed by you like a dog everywhere I go?"
"What's the matter with you?" retorted Joe. "Do you own the whole out of doors?"
Jack halted outside the door. "You take one way; I'll go the other," he said grimly.
Jack returned to the creek, and crossing on the stepping-stones walked out on the point beyond and sat down on a boulder. From here he could see a long way down the lake shore.