"Yagorsha know. Joe give him nice mitts--sealskin--_new_ mitts."
"Hear that, Colonel? For a pair of mitts he sells his daughter to that ruffian."
Without definite plan, quite vaguely and instinctively, he shook himself free from Muckluck, and rushed down to the scene of the tragedy. Muffled screams and yells issued with the smoke. Muckluck turned sharply to the Colonel, who was following, and said something that sent him headlong after the Boy. He seized the doughty champion by the feet just as he was disappearing in the tunnel, and hauled him out.
"What in thunder--All right, you go first, then. _Quick_! as more screams rent the still air.
"Don't be a fool. You've been interruptin' the weddin' ceremonies."
Muckluck had caught up with them, and Yagorsha was advancing leisurely across the snow.
"She no want _you_," whispered Muckluck to the Boy. "She _like_ Joe--like him best of all." Then, as the Boy gaped incredulously: "She tell me heap long time ago she want Joe."
"That's just part of the weddin' festivity," says the Colonel, as renewed shrieks issued from under the snow. "You've been an officious interferer, and I think the sooner I get you out o' Pymeut the healthier it'll be for you."
The Boy was too flabbergasted to reply, but he was far from convinced. The Colonel turned back to apologise to Yagorsha.
"No like this in your country?" inquired Muckluck of the crestfallen champion.
"Tell her so," muttered the Boy mechanically.
"Well--Joe been tellin' Anna--all winter."
"What did she go on like that for, then?"
The Boy felt painfully small at his own lack of _savoir_, but no less angry.
"When you marry"--he turned to her incredulously--"will it be"--again the shrieks--"like this?"
Glancing riverwards, he saw the dirty imp, who had been so wildly entertained by the encounter on the ice, still huddled on his drift-wood observatory, presenting as little surface to the cold as possible, but grinning still with rapture at the spirited last act of the winter-long drama. As the Boy, with an exclamation of "Well, I give it up," walked slowly across the slope after the Colonel and Yagorsha, Muckluck lingered at his side.
"In your country when girl marry--she no scream?"
"She go quiet? Like--like she _want_--" Muckluck stood still with astonishment and outraged modesty.