"I never thought of you in the marriage market, Dave," he said, with a vicious laugh. "I suppose it's only natural. Nobody ever associated you with marriage. Somehow your manner and appearance don't suggest it. I seem to see you handling lumber all your life, not dandling children on your knee. But there, you're a good catch—a mighty good one. And I was fool enough to trust you with my cause. Ye gods! Well, your weight of money has done it, no doubt. I congratulate you. She has lied to me, and no doubt she will lie——"
But the man, if he finished his remark at all, must have done so to the stacks of lumber in the yards, and to the accompaniment of the shriek of the saws. There was no fuss. Scarcely any struggle. Dave moved with cat-like swiftness, which in a man of his size was quite miraculous, and in a flash Jim Truscott was sprawling on the hard red ground on the other side of the doorway.
And when Dave looked round at Betty the girl's face was covered with her hands, and she was weeping. He stood for a second all contrition, and clumsily fumbling for words. He believed she was distressed at his brutal action.
"I'm sorry, little Betty," he blurted out at last. "I'm real sorry. But I just couldn't help it."
CHAPTER X
AN AUSPICIOUS MEETING
Malkern as a village had two moments in the day when it wore the appearance of a thoroughly busy city. At all other times there was little outward sign to tell of the prosperity it really enjoyed. Malkern's really bustling time was at noon, when its workers took an hour and a half recess for the midday meal, and at six o'clock in the evening, when the day and night "shifts" at the mill exchanged places.
There was no eight-hour working day in this lumbering village. The lumber-jacks and all the people associated with it worked to make money, not to earn a mere living. They had not reached that deplorable condition of social pessimism when the worker for a wage believes he is the man who is making millions for an employer, who is prospering only by his, the worker's, capacity to do. They were working each for himself, and regarded the man who could afford them such opportunity as an undisguised blessing. The longer the "time" the higher the wages, and this was their whole scheme of life.
Besides this, there is a certain pride of achievement in the lumber-jack. He is not a mere automaton. He is a man virile, strong, and of a wonderful independence all his own. His spirits are animal, keen of perception, keen for all the joys of life such as he knows. He lives his life, whether in play or work. Whether he be a sealer, a cant-hook man, a teamster, or an axeman, his pride is in his skill, and the rating of his skill is estimated largely by the tally of his day's work, on which depends the proportion of his wages.