CHAPTER XXXIX
BILL'S WAY
"And, to think," whispered Mrs. Appleton as she wiped a tear from her eye, after the half-breed's departure, "that in New York this same man had earned the name of 'Broadway Bill, the sport'!"
"Yes," answered her husband; "but Broadway Bill has passed, and in his place, out here in the big country, is Broadgauge Bill, the man! I knew I was right, Margaret, by gad, I knew it! Look in his eye!"
Followed, then, in the little office, an hour of intimate conversation, at the conclusion of which the two arose.
"Not a word to Ethel, remember," admonished the woman, and laughed knowingly as her husband stooped and kissed her.
During the days that followed, Appleton and Sheridan, accompanied by Blood River Jack, hunted from early morning until late evening, when they would return, trail-weary and happy, to spend hours over the cleaning and oiling of guns and the overhauling of gear.
Young Charlie was allowed to go on some of the shorter expeditions, but for the most part he was to be found dogging the heels of Bill Carmody; or perched upon a flour-barrel in the cook-shack, listening to the tales of Daddy Dunnigan.
The ladies busied themselves with the care of the two rooms, with useless needlework, and with dummy auction, varying the monotony with daily excursions into the near-by forest in quest of spruce-gum and pine-cones.
Since the morning Charlie had broken in so incontinently upon their breakfast no reference had been made to Bill Carmody by any member of the party; while the foreman pursued the even tenor of his way, apparently as unconcerned by their existence as they were by his.