CHAPTER XXXII
There was a celebration at Bow Claire. Lanterns hung from rafters and eaves to give the place an air of festivity. Across the back of the big lumber camp, where the fifty-five men who had pulled through were now convalescent, bunting and bright Indian blankets were hung.
Now that the last of the men had been pronounced out of danger, the lumber-jacks, with the connivance of the doctor and an Indian, had smuggled into the camp the provisions for the intended festival.
When Nettie came from the foreman's house that evening, to make her nightly rounds of her emergency camp hospital, the surprise party awaiting her almost frightened her. A dozen accordions all struck up at the same moment; mouth organs joined in; Jim Crow, the only darky in the camp, grinning from ear to ear, was twanging a real banjo, and Mutt, a giant Russian, with a voice like a great bell, led all hands in a deafening cheer for Nettie, a cheer that, in spite of their weakness, the men kept up for a long time.
Astonished and moved beyond speech, Nettie looked at her "boys," and smiled her thanks, though the tears ran down her cheeks. But the ceremonies were by no means over with the cheering and singing. Thin and pale, his eyes dark with a look of tragedy that wrung the girl's heart, Cyril Stanley stepped forward, a bouquet of flowers in his hands.
He alone in all the camp had been unable to find the courage to speak to Nettie. Those flowers, ragged from their journey on horseback, had cost the Bow Claire Camp more than the bouquet of a prima donna; and were intended to speak a message to the girl that the men lacked eloquence to say. Cyril had begged for the privilege of being the one to present the flowers. He came slowly forward, daring to look Nettie steadily in the face for the first time, and put out the hand that held the flowers; but the words he had planned to speak died on his lips. He could not even whisper her name.
She took the flowers from him and looked deep into his eyes. While the camp looked on in bewildered silence, the two estranged lovers gazed at one another for a long moment and when it had passed it had taken with it all the doubt and misunderstanding that had clouded Cyril Stanley's mind. Something within him seemed to burst, breaking down all the dikes of hatred he had built up in bitterness against her. He knew, as he looked into Nettie Day's clear eyes, that he loved her still beyond anything else on earth, and that he could have sworn by the living God above them that she could do, and had done, no wrong; that her heart was clean and pure and unstained.
Suddenly a sharp sound broke upon the hush that had fallen so strangely in the camp. The crisp metallic ring of a horse's hoofs sounded outside, and slowly the girl, her flowers still in her arms, turned as pale as death.