be able to take them."

There ensued a dismayed silence. The woman had come back from the
kitchen and stood with a steaming dish in her hands. After the brief
pause of consternation she set down the dish and went over to Pete.
"Here," she said, "sit down and let me take off your moccasin and bathe
your ankle before it begins to swell."

Hugh Garth had seated himself in the thronelike chair at the head of the
table. His expression was still defiant, indifferent, and lordly.
"Come and eat your dinner, both of you," he commanded. "You've had your
lesson, Pete. After this, I guess you'll do what I tell you to--not
choose the work that happens to suit your humor. Don't, for God's sake,
baby him, Bella. Don't start being a grandmother before you've ever been
a sweetheart. You're too young for the one even if you're getting a bit
too old for the other!"

Bella flushed deep and hot. She went to her place, and Pete hobbled to
his, opposite his brother. Between them the woman sat, dyed deep in her
sudden unaccustomed wave of scarlet. Pete's whiteness too was stained in
sympathy. But Hugh only chuckled. "As for the pelts," he said royally,
"I'll take them down myself."

Bella looked slowly up.

"You think I don't mean it, I suppose?" Hugh demanded.

They did not answer, but the eyes of the boy and the woman met. This
silence and this dumb exchange of understanding infuriated Garth. He
clinched his hands on the carved arms of his chair and leaned a little
forward.

"I'll take the pelts myself," he repeated boisterously. "I'm not afraid
to be seen at the station. I'm sick of skulking. Buried here--with _my_
talents--in this damn country, spending my days trapping and skinning
beasts to keep the breath in our three useless bodies. Wouldn't death be
better for a man like me? Easier to bear? Fifteen years of it! Fifteen
years! My best years!" He stared over Pete's head. "In all that time no
beauty to feed my starved senses, no work for my starved brain, no hope
for my starved heart." The woman and the youth watched him still in
silence. "That fox I killed this morning had a better life to lose than
I."

"It wouldn't be safe for you to go, Hugh," said Pete gently.

"Why not--watchdog?"

The sneer deepened the flush on Pete's face, but he answered with the
same gentleness, fixing his blue eyes on his brother's.

"Because not two months ago there was a picture of you tacked up in the
post-office."

Bella's face whitened,