How tall and strong Dan looked! Was she to believe that story of him heard last night? The very possibility of it made her cheeks burn at the thought of how she had stood with his arm around her. And he had pitied her that night. “Poor little girl!” he had said. Was his pity because he saw how much he was to her, while he himself thought only of some one else? One after another those thoughts had come to her through the sleepless night, and when the day came she could not face him to speak to him of the simplest thing. And of the money she must have, she could not ask him at all. She 261 wished she could have courage to go to him and tell him the thing she had heard; but courage was not strong in her of late. The fear that he might look indifferently on her and say, “Yes, it is true—what then?”—the fear of that was so great that she had walked by the water’s edge, as the sun rose, and felt desperate enough to think of sleep under the waves, as a temptation. For if it was true—
The two older women watched her, and decided that she was not yet strong enough to think of long journeys. Her hands would tremble at times, and tears, as of weakness, would come to her eyes, and she scarcely appeared to hear them when they spoke.
She never walked through the woods as of old, though sometimes she would stand and look up at the dark hills with a perfect hunger in her eyes. And when the night breeze would creep down from the heights, and carry the sweet wood scents of the forest to her, she would close her eyes and draw in long breaths of utter content. The strong love for the wild places was as second nature to her; yet when Max would ask her to go with him for flowers or mosses, her answer was always “no.”
But she would go to the boat sometimes, though no longer having strength to use the paddle. It was a good place to think, if she could only keep the others from going, too, so she slipped away from Max and the women and went down. A chunky, good-looking fellow was mending one of the canoes, and raised his head at her approach, nodding to her and evidently pleased when she addressed him.
“Yes, it is a shaky old tub,” he agreed, “but I told Overton I thought it could be fixed to carry freight for another trip; so he put me at it.” 262
“You are new in camp, aren’t you?” she asked, not caring at all whether he was or not. She was always friendly with the workmen, and this one smiled and bowed.
“We are all that, I guess,” he said. “But I came up the day Haydon and Seldon came. I lived with Seldon down the country, and was staggered a little, I tell you, when I found Overton was in charge, and had struck it rich. But no man deserves good luck more.”
“No,” she agreed. “Then you knew him before?”
“Yes, indeed—over in Spokane. He don’t seem quite the same fellow, though. We thought he would just go to the dogs after he left there, for he started to drink heavily. But he must have settled in his own mind that it wasn’t worth while; so here he is, straight as a string, and counting his dollars by the thousands, and I’m glad to see it.”
“Drink! He never drinks to excess, that we know of,” she answered. “Doesn’t seem to care for that sort of thing.”