men get crazy one time in their lives when a
woman gets around. It's no use. I just can't help it. I know all you're
thinking. Nancy McDonald belongs to our enemies. As you say she's done
her damnedest to break us. Maybe you reckon I ought to feel for her like
the devil does about holy water. Well, I don't. I'm plumb crazy for her,
and when spring clears up the waters of the Cove, and the _Myra_ comes
alongside, she's going right aboard, and will pass out of Labrador and
out of my life. I'm never going to get another sight of her. I'm never
going to get another sound of her dandy voice, or a sight of her pretty
eyes, and--Hell! What's the use. Oh, I know it all. You've no need to
tell me. We've made good. We've fought and won out. My contract's
complete, and everything's looking just as good for us as it knows
how--now. This mill. It's ours. Yours, and mine, and that other's, who I
don't know about. All I've to do is to sit around with the plums lying
in my lap. Well, I don't want those plums without Nancy. That's all. I
don't want a thing--without Nancy. All the dollars in America can burn
in hell for all I care, and as for groundwood pulp it's a damp mess of
fool stuff that don't signify to me if it finds its way to the bottom of
the North Atlantic. An added month of open season? What does it mean to
me? Work. Only work, and flies, and skitters. An added month of 'em.
Father Adam's a whole man again now, thanks to that dandy child. He'll
pull right out to the forests again, and--she'll pull out too. I--"

"That's all right," Bat broke in drily. "I get all that. But why not
marry the gal? Marry her an' quit all this darn argument. I guess this
mill's goin' to hand you all you need to keep a wife on. That seems to
me the natural answer to the stuff that's worryin' you."

His eyes twinkled as he regarded the other's troubled face.

"Is it?"

Bull was on his feet. Hot, desperate irritation lay behind the retort
which Bat's gentle sarcasm had drawn forth. His eyes were alight, and he
passed an unsteady hand across his forehead in a superlatively impatient
gesture.

"Marry her?" he exploded. "Say, are you every sort of darn fool on God's
earth, man? How can I hope to marry her? What sort of use can a girl
like that have for the man who's beat her right out of everything she
ever hoped to achieve? I've had to treat her like any old criminal, and
hold her prisoner. I've brought her right down here leaving her in a
man's