XI.
The loggers pulled off their boots and got into their bunks, where some of them lay and smoked, while others fell asleep directly.
Bartley made some indirect approaches to Kinney for sympathy in the snub which he had received, and which rankled in his mind with unabated keenness.
But Kinney did not respond. “Your bed's ready,” he said. “You can turn in whenever you like.”
“What's the matter?” asked Bartley.
“Nothing's the matter, if you say so,” answered Kinney, going about some preparations for the morning's breakfast.
Bartley looked at his resentful back. He saw that he was hurt, and he surmised that Kinney suspected him of making fun of his eccentricities to Mrs. Macallister. He had laughed at Kinney, and tried to amuse her with him; but he could not have made this appear as harmless as it was. He rose from the bench on which he had been sitting, and shut with a click the penknife with which he had been cutting a pattern on its edge.
“I shall have to say good night to you, I believe,” he said, going to the peg on which Kinney had hung his hat and overcoat. He had them on, and was buttoning the coat in an angry tremor before Kinney looked up and realized what his guest was about.
“Why, what—why, where—you goin'?” he faltered in dismay.
“To Equity,” said Bartley, feeling in his coat pockets for his gloves, and drawing them on, without looking at Kinney, whose great hands were in a pan of dough.