"I must be going."
"I'll go with you." He jumped to his feet with alacrity.
"Thank you. I prefer to walk alone."
"Couldn't think of it. I'll—" But he paused at the lift of her brows and the extraordinarily frigid look she gave him. He stood in his tracks, watching her descend the river trail.
"Declined with thanks!" he murmured. "I'd need ear-muffs and mittens to handle her. I think I'll build me some bonfire and thaw out. She must own the mint."
At the upper cannery Mildred found Alton Clyde with the younger Berry girl. She called him aside, and talked earnestly with him for several minutes.
"All right," he said, at length. "I'm glad to get out, of course; the rest is up to you."
Mildred's lips were white and her voice hard as she cried:
"I am thoroughly sick of it all. I have played the fool long enough."
"Now look here," Clyde objected, weakly, "you may be mistaken, and—it doesn't look like quite the square thing to do." But she silenced him with an angry gesture.