As he spoke, Walley Johnson sprang past him and went loping down the hill with long, loose strides like a moose.
Red McWha followed very deliberately with the teams. He resented anything emotional. And he was prepared to feel himself aggrieved.
When he reached the cabin door the sound of weeping had stopped. Inside he found Walley Johnson on his knees before the stove, hurriedly lighting a fire. Wrapped in his coat, and clutching his arm as if afraid he might leave her, stood a tiny, flaxen-haired child, perhaps five years old. The cabin was cold, almost as cold as the snapping night outside. Along the middle of the floor, with bedclothes from the bunk heaped awkwardly upon it in the little one’s efforts to warm it back to responsive life, sprawled rigidly the lank body of Joe Godding.
Red McWha stared for a moment in silence, then stooped, examined the dead man’s face, and felt his breast.
“Deader’n a herring!” he muttered.
“Yes! the poor old shike-poke!” answered Johnson, without looking up from his task.
“Heart?” queried McWha, laconically.
Johnson made no reply till the flame caught the 111 kindling and rushed inwards from the open draught with a cordial roar. Then he stood up.
“Don’ know about that,” said he. “But he’s been dead these hours and hours! An’ the fire out! An’ the kid most froze! A sick man like he was, to’ve kept the kid alone here with him that way!” And he glanced down at the dead figure with severe reprobation.
“Never was much good, that Joe Godding!” muttered McWha, always critical.