Part 40 (1/2)

Grace said nothing, for the door opened and the major came in.

XXIV

THE UNEXPECTED HAPPENS

It was a bitterly cold night, and Hetty Leger sat close to the fire which crackled on the big hearth in the bakery shanty. It flung an uncertain radiance and pungent aromatic odours about the little room, but there was no other light. Kerosene is unpleasantly apt to impart its characteristic flavour to provisions when jolted for leagues in company with them on the same pack-saddle, and the bringing of stores of any kind into the Green River country was then a serious undertaking. Tom Leger sat by the little table, and Sewell lay upon a kind of ottoman ingeniously extemporized out of spruce-twigs and provision bags.

It was significant that they were a.s.sembled in what had been Hetty's private apartment, for the bakery had grown, and there were two other rooms attached to it now. Leger had also struck gold a little while ago, and there was no longer any necessity for Hetty to continue baking, though she did so. She said she had grown used to it, and would sooner have something to do; but it had seemed to Leger that while everything was done with her customary neatness and system there was a change in her, and he fancied she did her work more to keep herself occupied than because she took pleasure in it. It had not been so once. In fact, the change had only become perceptible after Ingleby left the bakery; but Leger was wise in some respects and made no sign that he noticed this.

On that particular evening Hetty had not displayed her usual tranquillity of temper, and she turned to her brother with a little s.h.i.+ver.

”Can't you put on some more wood? It's disgustingly cold,” she said. ”If I'd known they had weather like this here I'd have stayed in Vancouver.”

Leger remembered that she had once professed herself perfectly contented with the Green River country, but he did not think it advisable to mention the fact. He rose and flung an armful of wood upon the fire, and then stood still smiling.

”You know you can go back there and stay through the winter, if you would like to,” he said.

”That's nonsense,” said Hetty. ”How could I go myself? You and your friends haven't made everybody nice to everybody yet. I'm not going, anyway, and if you worry me I'll be cross.”

She looked up sharply and saw that Sewell's face was unnaturally grave.

”Of course,” she said, ”you were grinning at Tom a moment ago. Still, I can't help it if I am a very little cross just now. It's the cold--and Tom spoiled the last batch of bread. It is cold, isn't it? If it hadn't been, we shouldn't have seen you.”

”I don't know why you should seem so sure of that,” said Sewell.

Hetty looked at him sharply. ”Well,” she said, ”I am. You would have gone on to the major's. You know you would. What do you go there so often for?”

Sewell had occasionally found Hetty's questions disconcerting, but he saw that she expected an answer.

”I am rather fond of chess,” he said.

Hetty smiled incredulously. ”That's rubbis.h.!.+”

”The major, at least, likes a game, and after pulling him back into this wicked world from the edge of a gully one naturally feel that he owes him a little.”

”You didn't pull him. It was Walter. Hadn't you better try again?”

Sewell appeared a trifle embarra.s.sed, for he saw that Leger was becoming interested.

”It is, to some extent, my business to understand the habits of the ruling cla.s.ses,” he said reflectively. ”You see, it's almost necessary.

Unless I know a little about them, how can I persuade anybody how far they are beneath us, as I'm expected to do?”

Hetty laughed. ”Well,” she said, ”you haven't tried to do anything of that kind for a long while now. Anyway, it seems to me that you knew a good deal about them before you ever saw Major Coulthurst. Of course, it's not my business, but if I were the major I'd make you tell me exactly what you were going there for.”

Sewell apparently did not relish this, though he laughed. It happens occasionally that those most concerned in what is going on are the last to notice it, and it had not occurred to Coulthurst or Ingleby that Sewell spent his evenings at the Gold Commissioner's dwelling frequently. He had, however, not often met Ingleby there, and it was significant that neither of them ever mentioned Grace Coulthurst to the other. In any case, Sewell did not answer, and while they sat silent there was a tramp of feet outside and the corporal came in. He was a taciturn and somewhat unsociable man, but he smiled as he looked at Hetty and sat down where the rude chimney Tomlinson had built was between him and the one small window.

”It's a bitter night, and there's 'most four foot of snow on the range.

I figured I'd look in to tell you it will be two or three days yet before you get the flour the folks at the settlements are sending up,”