They had come
that forenoon on a sledge, had eaten their dinner and supper at the
cabin of a Scotch tie-cutter named MacDonald, and had left on a sledge.
"She was the sweetest thing I ever saw," exclaimed Mrs. MacDonald
rapturously. "Only she couldn't talk. Two or three times she wrote
things to me on a slip of paper."
"Couldn't talk!" repeated Gregson, as the two men walked leisurely back
to the boarding-house. "What the deuce do you suppose that means, Jack?"
"I'm not supposing," replied Howland indifferently. "We've had enough of
this pretty face, Gregson. I'm going to bed. What time do we start in
the morning?"
"As soon as we've had breakfast--if you're anxious."
"I am. Good night."
Howland went to his room, but it was not to sleep. For hours he sat
wide-awake, smoking cigar after cigar, and thinking. One by one he went
over the bewildering incidents of the past two days. At first they had
stirred his blood with a certain exhilaration--a spice of excitement
which was not at all unpleasant; but with this excitement there was now
a peculiar sense of oppression. The attempt that had already been made
on his life together with the persistent warnings for him to return into
the South began to have their effect.
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