eks and then only to
pay a brief call, but he stole an opportunity, when Katy John was not
looking, to whisper in Stella's ear:

"Have you been thinking about that bungalow of ours?"

She shook her head, and he went out quietly, without another word. He
neither pleaded nor urged, and perhaps that was wisest, for in spite of
herself Stella thought of him continually. He loomed always before her,
a persistent, compelling factor.

She knew at last, beyond any gainsaying, that the venture tempted,
largely perhaps because it contained so great an element of the unknown.
To get away from this soul-dwarfing round meant much. She felt herself
reasoning desperately that the frying pan could not be worse than the
fire, and held at least the merit of greater dignity and freedom from
the twin evils of poverty and thankless domestic slavery.

While she considered this, pro and con, shrinking from such a step one
hour, considering it soberly the next, the days dragged past in
wearisome sequence. The great depth of snow endured, was added to by
spasmodic flurries. The frosts held. The camp seethed with the
restlessness of the men. In default of the daily work that consumed
their superfluous energy, the loggers argued and fought, drank and
gambled, made "rough house" in their sleeping quarters till sometimes
Stella's cheeks blanched and she expected murder to be done. Twice the
_Chickamin_ came back from Roaring Springs with whisky aboard, and a
protracted debauch ensued. Once a drunken logger shouldered his way into
the kitchen to leer unpleasantly at Stella, and, himself inflamed by
liquor and the affront, Charlie Benton beat the man until his face was a
mass of bloody bruises. That was only one of a dozen brutal incidents.
All the routine discipline of the woods seemed to have slipped out of
Benton's hands. When the second whisky consignment struck the camp,
Stella stayed in her room, refusing to cook until order reigned again.
Benton grumblingly took up the burden himself. With Katy's help and that
of sundry loggers, he fed the roistering crew, but for his sister it was
a two-day period of protesting disgust.

That mood, like so many of her moods, relapsed into dogged endurance.
She took up the work again when Charlie promised that no more whisky
should be allowed in the camp.

"Though it's ten to one I won't have a corporal's guard left when I want
to start work again," he grumbled. "I'm well within my rights if I put
my fo