Part 51 (1/2)
”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, blus.h.i.+ng, 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!”