“All right, mister—good night!” Nance answered, slowly feeling her way through the opening, watching him intently.
Jim lifted his head and nodded heavily for a moment. His hand slipped from the table and he drew himself up sharply and rose, holding to the table for support.
He picked up the plate of coin, poured it back in the bag, snapped the lock and walked with the bag unsteadily to the couch. He placed the bag under the pillow and pressed the soft feathers down over it, turned back to the table and extinguished the candle by a quick, square blow of his open palm on the flame.
He staggered to the couch, pushed the coats to the floor, dropped heavily, drew the lap-robe over him and in five minutes was sound asleep.
CHAPTER XIX. NANCE'S STOREHOUSE
The cabin was still. Only the broken sobbing of the woman in the little shed-room came faint and low on old Nance's ears.
She slipped from the kitchen into the shadows of a tree near the house and listened until the sobbing ceased.
She crept close to the shed and stood silent and ghost-like beside its daubed walls. Immovable as a cat crouching in the hedge to spring on her prey, she waited until the waning moon had sunk behind the crags. She laid her ear close to a crack in the logs from which she had once pushed the red mud to let in the light. All was still at last. The sobbing had stopped. The young wife was sound asleep.
She had wondered vaguely at first about the crying, but quickly made up her mind that it was only a lover's quarrel. She was glad of it. The girl would bar her door and sulk all night. So much the better. There would be no danger of her entering the living-room where Jim slept.