"Go 'way!" cried Bela desperately. "Go quick, or I hit you!"
He shrugged and went out. Bela slammed the door after him and dropped the bar in place. She barred the other door.
She looked despairingly around the disordered cabin, and moving uncertainly to the nearest box, dropped upon it, and spreading her arms on the table, let her head fall between them and wept like a white woman.
CHAPTER XXIII
MAHOOLEY'S INNINGS
The next day, as far as the settlement was concerned, Sam Gladding had ceased to be. Bringing the team to Bela's as he had promised, he left it tied outside, and the night had swallowed him.
At first it was supposed he had started to walk out around the north shore, the way he had come; but Indians from below Grier's Point reported that no white man had passed that way. They found likewise that he had not gone toward Tepiskow. He could not have crossed the river, save by swimming, an impossible feat burdened with a rifle and an axe.
Those who came in from around the bay said he had not been seen over there, though Joe Hagland had barricaded himself in his shack in the expectation of a visit.