him out. He has got an idea that his timber’s better than anybody else’s. He cuts it all with an old-fashioned vertical saw, and stamps his mark on every piece.”
“Why should it be any better?”
“I don’t know that it is, though he selects it carefully. The main thing is, he sells it dirt cheap, – has to, you know, to stand any show against the big companies. He’s so far out of the way, no boats would take the trouble to run around there if he didn’t. Well, McGlory, we’ve got a good thing to offer you. You can drop in here once a week or so, you know, to see how things are running. Come over to the office with us and we ‘ll settle the terms.” Stenzen-berger was rising as he spoke.
“Well, I don’t know. I couldn’t come over for a few minutes, Cap’n.”
“How soon could you?”
“About a quarter of an hour.”
“All right, we ‘ll be looking for you. Here, give me half a dozen ten cent straights while I’m here.”
McGlory walked to the door with them, and stood for a moment looking after them.
When he turned and pushed back through the swinging inner doors, he found Madge standing by the bar awaiting him, one hand held behind her, the other clenched at her side, her eyes shooting fire.
He paused, and looked at her without speaking.
“So you are going back to the Lake?” she said, everything about her blazing with anger except her voice – that was still quiet.
He was silent.
“Well, why don’t you answer me?”
“What’s all this fuss about, Madge? I haven’t gone yet.”
“Don’t try to put me off. Have you told them you would go back?”
“I haven’t told ‘em a thing. I’m going around in a minute to see the Cap’n, and we ‘ll talk it over then.”
“And you have forgotten what you promised me?”
“No, I ain’t forgot nothing. Look here, there ain’t no use o’ getting stagy about this. I ain’t told him I ‘ll do it. I don’t believe I will do it.”
“Why should you want to, Joe? Aren’t you happy here? Aren’t you making more money than you ever did on the Lake?”
“Why, of course.”
“Then why not stay here?”
“There’s only this about it,” he replied, leaning against the bar, and speaking in an off-hand manner; “Stenzenberger offers me the chance to do both. I could be in here every few days – see you most as much as I do now in a busy season – and make the extra pay clear.”
“Oh, that’s why you have been thinking you might do it?”
“Well, that’s the only thing about it that – ” He was wondering what was in her other hand. “You see, I can’t afford to get the Cap’n down on me.”
“You can’t? I should think he would be the one that couldn’t afford – ”
“Now see here, Madge.” He stepped up to her, and would have slipped his arm around her waist, but she eluded him. “I guess I ‘ll go over and see what he has to offer, and then I ‘ll come back, and you and me can talk it all over and see if we think – ”
“If we think!” she burst out. “Do you take me for a fool, Joe McGlory? Do you think for a minute I don’t know why you want to go – and why you mean to go? Look at that!” She produced a photograph of a pretty, foolish young woman, and read aloud the inscription on the back, “To Joe, from Estelle.”
An ugly look came into his eye. “I wouldn’t get excited about that kiddishness if I was you.”
“So you call it kiddishness, do you, and at your age?”
“Well, so long now, Madge. I ‘ll be back in a few minutes.”
“Joe – wait – don’t go off like that. Tell me that don’t mean anything! Tell me you aren’t ever going to see her again!”
“Sure, there’s nothing in it.”
“And you won’t see her?”
“Why, of course I won’t see her. She ain’t within five hundred miles of here. I don’t know where she is.”
“You ‘ll promise me that?”
“You don’t need to holler, Madge. I can hear you. Somebody’s likely to be coming in any minute, and what are they going to think?” He passed out into the back room, and she followed him.
“How soon will you be back, Joe?” She saw that he was putting on his heavy jacket – heavier than was needed to step over to the lumber office.
“Just a minute – that’s all.”
“And you won’t promise them anything?”
“Why, sure I won’t. I wouldn’t agree to anything before you’d had a look at it.”
He watched her furtively; and she stood motionless, trembling a little, ready at the slightest signal to spring into his arms. But he reached for his hat and went out.
She stood there, still motionless, until his step sounded on the front walk; then she ran upstairs and knelt by the window that overlooked the yards. She saw him enter the office. A few moments, and the two men who had been with Stenzenberger came out and walked away. A half-hour, and still Joe was in there with the lumber merchant. An hour – and then finally he appeared, glanced back at the saloon, and walked hurriedly around the corner out of sight. And she knew that he had slipped away from her. The photograph was still in her hand, and now she looked at it again, scornfully, bitterly.
A man entered the saloon below, and she did not hear him until he fell to whistling a music-hall tune. At something familiar in the sound a peculiar expression came over her face, and she threw the picture on the floor and hurried down. When she entered the sample room, her eyes were reckless.
The man was young, with the air of the commercial traveller of the better sort. He was seated at one of the tables, smoking a cigarette. His name was William Beveridge, but he passed here by the name of Bedloe.
“Hello, Madge,” he said; “what’s the matter – all alone here?”
“Yes; Mr. Murphy’s down town.”
“And McGlory – where’s he?”
“He’s out too.”
He looked at her admiringly. Indeed, she was younger and prettier, for the odd expression of her eyes.
“Well, I’m in luck.”
“Why?” she asked, coming slowly to the opposite side of the table and leaning on the back of a chair.
But in gazing at her he neglected to reply. “By Jove, Madge,” he broke out, “do you know you’re a beauty?”
She
