“Mr. Dale,” he said with a wave of the hand, “pardon our agitation. I am Randall Batterly. This is the first time my wife and I have met in five years.”
I reached Haidee’s side just in time, for the crutch slipped from her grasp, and she would have fallen but for my steadying arm.
Joey, the dauntless, sprang forward and menaced the big man with threatening, childish fist. “You leave my Bell Brandon alone!” he screamed, “you leave her alone—you big, bad man! I wish we’d let you die, I do.”
I placed Haidee in a chair. I took Joey’s hand and led him indoors. I heard a wild cry ring out:
“I thought you were dead in the Yukon, Randall Batterly, I thought you were dead. I hate you! I hate you!”
I closed the door on her agonized weeping.
Before the big man left that day he sent Wanza to ask me to come to him in the living room. I was in my workshop, and I shook my head when the message was delivered. In the mood I was in then it was well for me not to go to him. I shall never forget the expression on Mrs. Olds’ face when she sought me in the shop a half hour later to bid me good-bye. She had found, at last, food for her prying, suspicious mind.
“I am that shocked and surprised, Mr. Dale!” she gasped, all of a flutter. “Why, I’m just trembly! I heard high voices, and I stole out on the porch, and there they were, saying such dreadful, dreadful things to each other! And isn’t it odd, Mr. Dale, that they should come together here in this remote—I was going to say God forsaken—spot, this way? Now, don’t you suppose they will patch up their differences? I should think they might—they’re young folks—it seems a pity the amount of domestic infelicity nowadays—and they are a likely fine looking couple.” She drew breath, shook her head, and paused dramatically.
I felt her fish-eyes searching my face.
Then she broke out, as I maintained an apparently unruffled front: