In the filthy office of the camp on the Lower Blood River, Buck Moncrossen sat at his desk and glowered over his report sheets. The ill-trimmed lamp smoked luridly, and the light that filtered through its blackened chimney illumined dimly the interior of the little room.
The man pawed over his papers with bearlike clumsiness, pausing now and then to wet a begrimed thumb and to curse his luck, his crew, his employer, and any and everything that had to do with logs and logging.
It had been a bad season for Buck Moncrossen. The spring break-up was at hand, and the best he could figure was a scant nine million feet, where Appleton had expected the heavy end of a twenty-five-million-foot cut.
Many of his best men had gone to the new camp to work, as they supposed, under Fallon. The previous winter's bird's-eye cut was lost; Creed was gone; Stromberg was gone, and he trusted none of his men sufficiently to continue the game. The boss rose with a growl, and spat copiously in the direction of the stove.
"Damn Appleton! And damn the crew! Nine million feet! At that, though, I bet I've laid down half agin as much as the new camp. Fallon never run a crew, an' he had his camp to build to boot."
He resumed his seat, and reaching to the top of the desk drew down a quart bottle, from which he drank in long, deep gurgles. He stared a long time at the bottle, drank again, and stooping, began to unlace his boots.
"I'll start the clean-up in the mornin', an' then I'll find time to pay a little visit I be'n aimin' to pay all winter. Creed said she was somewheres below the foot of the rapids. It's anyways ten days to the break-up; an' I ain't worryin' a damn if I do happen to foul Fallon's drive."
Jacques Lacombie had so arranged his trap-lines that on his longest circle he should be absent only one night from the lodge where old Wa-ha-ta-na-ta kept an ever-vigilant eye upon the comings and goings of Jeanne.
Since his return after the great blizzard the half-breed had made numerous trips to the camp of Moncrossen, carrying fresh venison, and he did not like the shifting glances the boss bent toward him, nor the leering smile with which he inquired after Jeanne.
As the freezing nights hardened the crust upon the surface of the sodden snow, Jacques discarded his rackets and, spending his days in the lodge, attended his traps at night by the light of a lantern.