After Stefan had started away with Madge, Miss Sophy McGurn, who had been on the watch, was delighted to see Mrs. Olsen coming to the store. She greeted her customer more pleasantly than ever and served her with a bag of beans, two spools of black thread and a pound of the best oleo-butter. The older woman was nothing loath to talk, and confirmed the girl’s suspicion that Stefan had taken that young woman to Hugo’s. Mrs. Olsen insisted on the fact that her visitor was a real pretty girl, though awfully thin and looking as if a breath would blow her over. She also commented on the lack of suitable clothing for such dreadful weather, and on the utter ignorance Madge seemed to display of anything connected with Carcajou or, in fact, any part of Ontario. When questioned, cautiously, she admitted that she knew no reason whatever for the girl’s coming, but she hastened to assert that Stefan had said it was all right, which settled the question, and, 153 with her rather waddling gait, started off for her house again.

As soon as Stefan returned Sophy saw that he still had a woman on his toboggan. She hurried to meet him and was grievously disappointed when she found out it was Mrs. Carew. But she boldly went up to Stefan.

“Hello! Stefan!” she said. “Where did you leave your passenger of this morning?”

“Hello! Sophy!” he answered, placidly. “I leaf de yong leddy vhere she ban going, I tank.”

“She isn’t coming back to-night?”

“Mebbe yes, mebbe no,” he answered, grabbing Mrs. Carew’s bag and hurrying with her into the station, for the engine’s whistle announced that he had made the journey with little or no time to spare.

Sophy made her way back to the store, meeting Mrs. Kilrea on her way. To this lady she confided that a young woman had gone up to Hugo Ennis’ shack and had not returned. Wasn’t it queer? And Mrs. Olsen had said that she wasn’t Hugo’s wife or sister. Wasn’t it funny? But of course she supposed it was all right.

Mrs. Kilrea called on old Mrs. Follansbee, who told Mrs. McIntosh. This lady was a Cree Indian that had become more or less 154 civilized. The white women would speak to her on account of her husband Aleck, who was really a very nice man. At any rate all the ladies of Carcajou were soon aware of the unusual happening, scenting strange news and perhaps even a bit of scandal.

Big Stefan, having urged his team to their utmost, now fed them carefully and locked them up in his shed, a local habit providing against bloody fights that were objected to not so much on moral principle as because these contests often resulted in the disabling of valuable animals. It also prevented incursions among the few sheep of the neighborhood or long hunts in which dogs indulged by themselves, returning with sore feet and utterly unable to move for a day or two. The animals, before falling asleep, were biting off the crackling icicles that had formed in the hair growing between their padded toes. The journey had not exhausted them in the slightest and on the morrow they would be perfectly fit for further travel, if need be.

Neither was Stefan weary. After supper he quietly strolled over to the store where some of Carcajou’s choicest spirits were gathered, since the village boasted no saloon. Here the news was discussed, as spread out by the few who got a daily or weekly paper from 155 Ottawa or Sudbury, or gathered in the immediate neighborhood by the local gossips.

“Hello, Stefan!” exclaimed Miles Parker, who was supposed to watch over the sawmill and see that the machinery didn’t suffer too much during the long period of disuse. “How did ye find the travelin’ to-day? See ye didn’t manage ter freeze them whiskers off’n yer face, did ye?”

“Dey’re yoost vhere dey belongs, I tank,” answered Stefan, quietly. “Miss Sophy, if you haf time I take two plugs Lumberman’s Joy terbacker.”

“Stefan he’s so all-fired big he got to keep a chew on each side of his face,” explained Pat Kilrea, a first-rate mechanic who was then busy with the construction of a little steamer that was to help tow down to the mill some big booms of logs, as soon as the lake opened. “He ain’t able to get no satisfaction except from double action.”

At this specimen of local wit and humor the others grinned but Stefan remained quite unmoved. Miss Sophy waited on him, scanning his face, eager to ask more questions, while she feared to say a word. It may have been her conscience which made her uneasy. Of course she believed that the precautions she had taken rendered it impossible for any one 156 to accuse her, or at any rate to prove anything. Still, a certain anxiety remained, which she was unable to restrain. She would have given a good deal to know what had taken place. Never had she doubted that the scene would occur right there at the station in Carcajou. That telegram had badly upset her plans, apparently. And then it was queer that Hugo had not come down after receiving it, if only to try to find out what it meant. Finally, one of the men, having none of her reasons for keeping still, came forth with a direct question.

“I reckon you got out to Roarin’ Falls all safe with that there pooty gal, didn’t ye?” he asked.

It was Joe Follansbee who had sought this information, being only too eager to hint at something wrong on the part of a man he had long deemed a rival. At his words, however, Sophy sniffed and turned up her nose.

“I didn’t see anything very pretty about her,” she said.

“Well, I didn’t see as how she was so real awful pretty,” Joe hastened to observe. “She ain’t the style I admire, by no manner of means.”

This strategic withdrawal was destined to meet with entire failure, however. Sophy 157 turned to the boxes of plug that were stored on the shelves and pretended to busy herself with their order and symmetry. But she was again listening, eagerly.

“What d’ye say, Stefan?” joined Pat Kilrea. “How’d she stand the trip? Did ye see if her nose was still on her face when ye got there?”

“I tank so,” opened Stefan, gravely, “but it wouldn’t matter so much vith de leddy. Maybe she ain’t so much use for it like you haf for yours, to stick into oder people’s pusinesses.”

Stefan continued to shave off curly bits from his plug, while the laughter turned against the engineer. Carcajou, like a good many other places, commonly favored the top-dog when it came to betting. The answering grin in Pat’s face was a rather sour one. If any other man had spoken to him thus there might have been a lively fight, but no one in Carcajou, and a good many miles around it, cared to engage in fisticuffs with the Swede. A story was current of how he had once manhandled four drunken lumberjacks, in spite of peavies and sticks of cordwood.

“Well, you’re getting to be a good deal of a lady’s man, Stefan,” said Aleck McIntosh, a fellow who was supposed to be a scion of 158 Scottish nobility receiving remittances from his country. The most evident part of his income, however, appeared to be contributed by his Cree wife, who took in the little washing Carcajou indulged in and made the finest moccasins in Ontario. “Going off with one and coming back with another. I dare say you prefer carrying females to lugging the mails around.”

“Mebbe I likes it better but it’s more hard on dem togs,” asserted Stefan, judicially.

“And––and ye left her at Hugo’s shack, did ye?” ventured Pat again, whereat Stefan nodded in assent and lighted his pipe.

“Did she say she was anyways related to him? His sister or something like that?” persisted the engineer.

“Well, I tank she say somethin’ about bein’ his grandmother,” retorted Stefan, “but I can tell you something, Pat. If you vant so much know all about it vhy you not put on your snowshoes an’ tak’ a run down there. It ban a real nice little valk.”

As Pat Kilrea suffered from the handicap of having been born with a club-foot, which didn’t prevent him from being an excellent man with machinery but made walking rather burdensome for him, the others guffawed again while the Swede opened the door and 159 walked off, the crusted snow crackling under his big feet.

“In course it’s none of my business, like enough,” said Pat, virtuously, as he scratched a match on his trousers’ leg, “but such goings on don’t seem right, nohow. ’Tain’t right an’ proper, because it gives a bad example. I’ve knowed folks rid on a rail or even tarred and feathered for the like of that.”

Carcajou’s sterling sense of propriety, as represented by half a dozen male gossips, immediately agreed with him. The matter, they decided, should be looked into.

“And––and what d’ye think about it, Miss Sophy?” asked Joe, desirous of opening conversation again with the young woman and redeeming himself.

“Things like that is beneath me to talk about,” she asserted, coldly. “And what’s more, I don’t care to hear about ’em. It––it’s time ye got back to the depot, Joe Follansbee and I’m goin’ to close up anyways and give ye all a chance to burn your own oil.”

At this delicate invitation to vacate the premises the men rose and trooped out. Once outside, however, they felt compelled in spite of the bitter cold to comment a little further on the situation.

Sophy McGurn put up the large iron bar 160 that was used to secure the front door, when the store was closed. Then she put some papers away in the safe under the counter and went up to the family sitting room, where her mother was knitting and her father, with an open paper on his lap and his spectacles pushed up over his forehead, was fast asleep in a big and highly varnished oaken rocker trimmed with scarlet plush.

“I’m goin’ to bed,” she announced; “good-night.”

The old gentleman awoke with a start and the mother, looking over her glasses, bade her good-night and sweet dreams, according to a long-established formula.

“Don’t know what’s the matter with Sophy, she’s that restless an’ nervous,” said her mother.

“She always was, fur’s I know,” answered McGurn. “If she’s gettin’ the complaint worse she must be sickenin’ for something.”

The subject of these remarks, once in her room, was in no hurry to woo the slumber she had expressed a desire for. In her mind anxiety was battling with anger and disappointment. Whether or not she really loved Ennis, or had turned to him merely because his general ways and appearance showed him to be a man of some breeding, with education 161 superior to the usual standard of Carcajou, such as she would have been glad to marry, at any rate her brow narrowed, her lips closed into a thin straight line and her hands were clenched tight. What she had done would probably utterly prevent any renewal of the friendship she had tried to establish, since Hugo would perhaps be run out of the place. Moreover, that girl was really very pretty, in spite of what she had said downstairs, and this stranger was now over there. Sophy had expected to see her return with Stefan, perhaps also with Hugo, and the girl’s face would have shown marks of tears, and Hugo would have been in a towering rage, and gradually the people of Carcajou would have been made aware, somehow, of what had happened, and the settler of Roaring Falls would be the butt of laughter, if not of scurrilous remarks. But now the dark night had come and Carcajou was very still under the starlight.

The old cat scratching at her door startled her. The profound silence that followed appeared to irk her badly. After a long time there was the shriek of the night-freight’s whistle and the great rumbling of the arriving train, the grinding of brakes, shouts that sounded harshly, various loud thumps as cars were shunted off to the siding. And then the 162 train started again, groaning and clattering and heaving up the grade through the cut, after which the intense stillness returned and she lay awake, her eyes peering through darkness, her senses all alert and her nerves a-quiver, until nearly the coming of dawn.

But the men who had gone out, before scattering to their homes, had reached a unanimous conclusion. It was true that excitement was rare in Carcajou, but this was a matter of upholding the fair reputation of the mill and four or five dozen shacks and frame houses that constituted the village. It was decided that a committee must go over to the Falls and investigate.

“I won’t say but what Hugo Ennis he’s been mostly all right, fur’s we know,” acknowledged Phil Prouty of the section gang. “But then he warn’t brought up in these here parts an’ he can’t be allowed to flout the morals o’ this community in any sich way. If it’s like we fears, the gal’ll have ter pack off an’ him promise ter behave or leave the country. Them’s my sentiments. We better go to-morrow.”

At this, however, there were some objections. It might be that on the next day the young woman would return. Then their trip would be useless. And then two days later 163 would be Sunday, on which there would be less interference with their occupations, especially as it was the off day in church, where the services were held but twice a month. It was voted to start then at an early hour. There was a strong team of horses used to lumbering that could be trusted to manage the old tote-road, drawing Sam Kerrigan’s big sleigh.

“Hosses used ter do it,” asserted the latter, “and they kin do it again.”

“Maybe Stefan’d take you up with them dogs of his, Kilrea,” suggested one of the men, grinning.

“No! And by the way, byes. Ye don’t want ter let that there Swede know nothin’ of this. He’s too thick with Hugo, he is, and we don’t want him around raisin’ any ruction if there happens to be a bit o’ loud talk. He’d be liable to raise a rumpus, he would.”

This appeared to be excellent strategy and it met with unanimous approval. The men dispersed to their respective shacks and houses, to discuss the matter further with their wives, in case any of them were still awake. One or two of the sturdier ladies at once volunteered to lend further dignity to the proceedings with their presence and could not 164 be dissuaded from joining the Carcajou Vigilantes.

In the meanwhile the unconscious objects of all these plans were happily unaware of the fate in store for them. Madge, with a little child that had snuggled into her arms, had found a forgetfulness that was a blessing. In spite of her weariness and of the emotions she had undergone, the good food and pure air had produced some effect upon her. She slumbered perhaps more deeply and restfully than she had for many long months. And Hugo Ennis, in pain, tossed in his bunk, his mind racked with uneasy thoughts and his wounded shoulder throbbing, till he slept also.