"When the ladies have selected their room I will have your gear moved into the other," said Bill; and, with a bow to the ladies, moved off in the direction of the cook-shack.
Alone in the office, Ethel Manton gazed about upon the meager furnishings; a desk, the little air-tight stove with its huge wood-box; three wooden chairs, a trunk secured by a padlock, and a bunk neatly laid with heavy blankets.
Several pairs of boots, moccasins, and heavy mittens were ranged along the floor next to the wall, while from pegs above them hung a faded mackinaw, a slicker, and several pairs of corduroy trousers.
Tacked to the wall above the desk was a large, highly colored calendar, while upon the opposite wall hung a rifle and a belt of yellow cartridges. Her woman's eye took in the scrupulous neatness of the room and the orderly disposition of the various articles.
For the first time in her life she was in a man's room, and she felt a keen thrill of interest in her surroundings. Upon the top of the desk beside the little bracket-lamp was a short row of books.
"It is too bad," she muttered, "that he couldn't have been nice. How I would have enjoyed talking with him and telling him how splendid it is that he is making good!
"Maybe somewhere a girl is wondering where he is—and waiting day after day for word from him—and worrying her very heart out. Oh, I hope she will never know about this Jeanne—ugh! An Indian—and Uncle Appleton said he is a gentleman!"
She paused before the desk and idly read the titles of the books; there were a logger's manual, a few text-books on surveying and timber estimating, several of the latest novels, apparently unread and a well-thumbed copy of Browning.
"Browning! Of all things—in a log camp! Now I know there is a girl—poor thing!" Open, face downward upon the surface of the desk where it had been pushed aside to make room for a rough sketch of the camp with its outreaching skidways and cross-hauls, lay a small volume.
"And Southey!" she exclaimed under her breath, and picked up the book. It was "Madoc," and three lines, heavily underscored, stood boldly out upon the page: