“You won’t go till Marion gets through with the lumber sawing?” she asked. “There’ll be so few men at the settlement if they have to help saw lumber up at Marietta.”
Jimmy could not see her face, but her matter-of-course tone staggered him. He wondered if girls could really feel things—if they had real pride; if they understood what it was to smart under a wrong until the pain cried for a sharp revenge. He shut his teeth on the hard words that came to him, and after a moment, said quietly:
“No, Milly. I can’t wait. I’ve got to get away. I guess I wasn’t made for civilization. I guess I don’t fit.”
They were entering the clearing about the Ayers’ cabin. Light came through the window, showing that the fire was being kept up and that those within were astir.
“I’ll watch you inside the door,” Jimmy said, halting in the path.
“Won’t you come in?” she begged. “You can sleep in Mose’s shake-down in the loft.”
A little shiver passed through him. “In _Mose’s_ shake-down?” he repeated. “No, I’m obliged to you just as much. I’ll trouble you to keep this gun for Marion. It’s his. I won’t have a chance to return it.”
“Why, Jimmy, you aren’t going into the woods to-night?”
“Why not?” he asked. “Haven’t I been in the woods at night before this? Run in, now. Good night, Milly.”
The girl stood, helpless against the bitterness in his guarded voice.
“Good night,” she faltered. “Oh, Jimmy, it’s perfectly terrible for you to go——.”
She moved slowly towards the door. He watched her indistinct figure blend into the shadow of the cabin wall. Then the door opened, letting a flood of light across the snow. Mrs. Ayer stood in the doorway a moment while Milly said something to her, and then she called:
“Jimmy Claiborne, come in this minute, child!”
Still he made no answer. The warmth and the sight of the two women waiting for him, with nothing but kindness and tenderness in their hearts, moved him strangely. He was so unused to it. But he did not answer, and after waiting a moment longer they stepped back inside and the door shut them from his sight.
Choking down something that smarted in his throat, he strode away from the clearing.
Twenty minutes later he had reached the Claiborne home cabin. He knocked sharply on the door.