The men laughed and sang and talked of the drive, and of the waterfront dives of cities, whose calk-pocked floors spoke the shame of the men of the logs.
But most of all they talked of the wedding. For as they sat at the supper-table on the day the last tree fell, the boss entered, accompanied by the girl.
In a few brief words he told them that he was proud of every man jack of them; that they were the best crew that ever came into the woods, and that they had more than earned the bonus.
He told them that he realized he was a greener, and thanked them for their loyalty and coöperation, without which his first season as camp foreman must have been doomed to failure.
Cheer after cheer interrupted his words, and when he took Ethel by the hand and announced that they were soon to be married in that very room and invited all hands to the wedding, their cheers drowned his voice completely.
But when the girl tried to speak to them, choked in confusion, and with her eyes brimming with tears, extended both hands and gasped: "Oh, I—I love you all!" the wild storm of applause threatened to tear the roof from the log walls.
It was Ethel's idea that they should be married in the woods. Her love for the wild country grew deeper with the passing days. She loved it all—the silent snow-bound forest, the virile life of the big camp with its moments of tense excitement, the mighty crash with which tall trees tore through the branches of lesser trees to measure their length on the scarred snow, the thrill of hunting wild things, and the long evenings when the rich tones of the graphophone fell upon her ears amid rough surroundings, like a voice from the past.
But most of all she loved the long walks in the forest, in the deep gloom of moonlit nights with the weird, mysterious shadows all about them as the big man at her side told her of his great love while they planned and dreamed of the future; and then returned to the little office where she listened while he read aloud, pausing now and then to light his black pipe and blow clouds of blue smoke toward the low ceiling.
He had grown very close to her, and very dear, this big, impetuous boy, who had suddenly become a masterful man, and in whom she found each day some new depth of feeling—some entirely unsuspected and unexplored nook of his character.
Her doubts and fears had long since been thrust aside, and even the existence of the Indian girl had been forgotten. And so it was that when Ethel told Bill one evening she wished their wedding to take place in the camp, amid the scenes of their future hardships and happiness, he acquiesced gladly, and to the laughing outrage of her dignity picked her up in his two hands and tossed her high in the air as he would have tossed a baby.