A little cry of helpless anger escaped her. "How can you shame me so?" she murmured.
"Shame you?" said poor Jim. "If you want a thing you've got to fight for it, ain't you?"
"I don't want him!" she cried. "Let him go! The sooner he goes the better I'll be pleased! Understand, both of you, he is repulsive to me! I never want to see him again as long as I live!"
It was the third time that day that Ralph had been denounced. He was only human. His self-love was wounded. "What's the matter with you all?" he cried. "I'm neither a leper nor a crook! Why should I be blamed for what nobody could help?"
"Come back to the house," said Kitty imperiously to her father.
Jim followed her as if he had been whipped. "God save the wumman!" he muttered. "Blest if I know what she wants!"
Ralph returned to his work with a savage zest, and wholly unmindful of the pain in his shoulder. It was an impossible situation; there was nothing he could do, therefore no use thinking about it. The only thing was to get away as soon as he could. He bored holes in the ends of his four logs, and cutting two cross-pieces bored them and fastened the whole frame together with stout wooden pegs. By the time it was done the afternoon was far advanced. He floated his craft out into the river, and, pulling it up on the sand, took the auger and the axe back to the work-shack.
Jim Sholto, busy with the furnaces, turned a grim, hard face at his entrance.
"Will you sell me food and a gun and a blanket?" asked Ralph stiffly.
"It's waiting for you in the kitchen," was the harsh answer. "No dog shall starve through me."