"He is mine--mine!" she cried aloud, "and I love him!"
But deep down in her heart she knew that she did care--and that she would always care. And the knowledge hurt.
Her toilet completed, the girl pa.s.sed into the other room, where Appleton and Sheridan were engaged in a lively discussion with the ladies.
"How is he?" She addressed her uncle, who answered with twinkling eyes.
"Bill? Oh, he"s all right. Feeling fit as a fiddle. Wanted to get out on the job, but I wouldn"t let him. He was going anyhow, and the only way I could make him stay in was to threaten to wake you up to give him his orders straight from headquarters."
Ethel blushed furiously as the smiles of the others were directed toward her. "Yup, he wouldn"t stand for that," went on Appleton. "Said he"d rather lie in bed for a week than have you puttering around."
With a disdainful toss of her head the girl seated herself at the table.
"Now, Hubert Appleton, you stop teasing that poor girl!" Aunt Margaret rallied in her defence. "Don"t pay any attention to him, honey. Bill is doing nicely, and we"re all crazy to congratulate you. We think he is just _grand_!"
Dinner had been kept piping hot, and Ethel hid her confusion behind an appetizing array of steaming dishes.
"And what do you think?" continued her aunt, who hovered about the table with fussy little pats and arrangement of dishes, "we have to stay here all winter!"
"What?" cried the girl in dismay.
"That is just what we both said--Mary and I. But there is no help for it. The tote-road is drifted twenty feet deep. Hubert and Mr. Sheridan are going to make the trip on snowshoes; they must get back to business. The supplies will have to be brought in on dog-sleds, and we have got to stay."
"I"ll bet Ethel could think of a worse predicament," grinned Appleton.
"She"ll be a regular sourdough before spring; won"t want to come out."
"But I have nothing to wear!"
"Nothing to wear!" scoffed her uncle. "Tell me, please, what in time you women have got packed in those half a dozen trunks, then? It"s not grub. I"ll bet there"s clothes enough in those trunks to last three women fourteen years! Still, if you really get cold, you might ask Bill to lend you a pair of his----"
"Hubert Appleton!" The lumberman glanced at his wife in surprise. "A pair of his moccasins--they"ll keep your toes warm."
The girl finished her belated dinner, and throwing a coat over her shoulders stepped out into the clear, crisp air. Immediately in front of the building the wind had swept the ground almost bare of snow, but Ethel gasped with surprise as her eyes sought the other buildings of the camp.
The blacksmith"s shop was entirely buried under a huge drift; only one half of the cook-shack roof was visible, and the bunk-house was buried to the eaves. A twenty-foot drift cut off the view of the stables, and the whole crew was busy digging paths and breaking out skidways.
The storm had ceased as suddenly as it had come, and the sun shone with dazzling whiteness upon the mystic, snow-buried world.
In the office she found Bill fully dressed, propped against his pillows, a villainous black pipe between his lips, reading. He laid aside his book and pipe and stretched his arms toward her.
She crossed, blushing, to his side, and for a long time sat with her head resting upon his shoulder, while his great arms held her close against his beating heart.
And under the spell of his presence and his gently murmured words of love, the disquieting fear vanished, and she knew that he was all hers.
And she laughed at her fear, and drove it from her in the foolish belief that it could never return.
"Dear," she said later when their conversation a.s.sumed an intelligible form, "you must send those bonds back by Uncle Appleton. Just think--your father thinks you _stole_ them!"
The man smiled:
"Yes, poor old dad. It must be kind of rough on him to think his son is a thief. He was sore that morning, and so was I, and we didn"t part the best of friends. But I would rather return the bonds myself. Darling, we will take them to him, you and I, next summer, when we go back to the old town."
"Go back!" exclaimed the girl.
"Sure. When we go back on our honeymoon. Now that I have you I am never, never going to let you go, and when next you see the big burg, you will be Mrs. Bill Carmody."
He kissed the serious blue eyes that looked up into his.
"But, dear, we are coming back here?"
"Back here!" he exclaimed in surprise. "You! Back here! In the woods!"
The girl nodded.
"I love the woods; I will always love them. It was in the woods that you found _yourself_ and your place among men. And it was in the woods that I found you--the _real_ you--the _you_ I have always loved!"
"But, dear heart, it is a rough life up here. It is new to you now, and you are enchanted; but there is so much you would miss. I have to come back, of course--will have to for several years to come. We could have a house in Minneapolis, and Charlie could go to school."
"What! And only have you for five or six months in the year? No, _sir_!
Charlie could live with Uncle and Aunt Margaret and go to school, but you and I are coming into the woods.
"Aunt Margaret lived in camps for years when she was first married, and they were as poor as church mice. She told me all about it. Of course, there is hard work; but it is all so big, and grand, and free, and there is lots of fun, too, and you will have to teach me to shoot and walk on snowshoes and fish through holes cut in the ice.
"I can cook and sew, and we will have a victrola, and lots of books and things--anyway, that is the way it is going to be, so there is no use arguing about it." And the boss smiled as he realized what Appleton meant when he said: "Orders straight from headquarters."
The two lumbermen took their departure the following morning amid the hearty farewells of the snow-bound camp. They were accompanied by Blood River Jack, who reluctantly agreed to see the dog-team tote service established before returning to his lodge at the foot of the rapid.
"We"ll come up for you in the spring," called Appleton, "and we"ll follow the drive in a bateau. You got a bigger taste of the old life than you bargained for, little girl," he smiled at his wife; "but the tote-road is ruined for this winter and you"ll have to make the best of it."
"H. D. and I will sure think of you girls while we"re sitting in the baldheaded pews at the Gaiety this winter gloating over the grand opera we"re missing!" called Sheridan, rolling his cigar juicily between his grinning lips.
"Men of your age----" began Mrs. Sheridan.
"Hubert Appleton! If I hear----" But the protests of the "girls" fell upon deaf ears as the men disappeared in the wake of the guide, slapping each other upon the back in high glee.
The question of grand opera was a joke of long standing between them, and up to the present had been on the husbands, who, despite their protests, had manfully endured their annual week of martyrdom.
"Cheer up, ladies," smiled Bill, "the graphophone is a very good one, and in the office is a whole box of records of my own selection. If we are snow-bound we will not have to entirely forego even grand opera."
CHAPTER XLVI
AN ANNOUNCEMENT
Despite the handicap of the deep snow, results in the new camp were highly satisfactory to Bill Carmody.