"Hello, old man," Tommy greeted cheerfully. "How goes it?"
If it occurred to either of them that the last time they faced each
other it had been in hot anger and in earnest endeavor to inflict bodily
damage, they were not embarrassed by that recollection, nor did either
man hold rancor. Their hands gripped sturdily. It seemed to Thompson,
indeed, that a face had never been so welcome. He did not want to sit
alone and think. Even apart from that he was uncommonly glad to see
Tommy Ashe.
"It doesn't go much at all," he said. "As a matter of fact, I just got
back to Lone Moose to-night after being away for weeks."
"Same here," Tommy responded. "I've been trapping. Heard you'd gone to
Pachugan, but thought it was only for supplies. I got in to my own
diggings to-night, and the shack was so infernally cold and dismal I
mushed on down here on the off chance that you'd have a fire and
wouldn't mind chinning awhile. Lord, but a fellow surely gets fed up
with his own company, back here. At least I do."
Thompson awoke to hospitable formalities.
"Have you had supper?" he asked.
"Stopped and made tea about sundown," Tommy replied. "Thanks just the
same. Gad, but it was cold this afternoon. The air fairly crackled."
"Yes," Thompson agreed. "It was very cold."
He drew a stool up to the stove and sat down. Tommy got out his pipe and
began whittling shavings of tobacco off a plug.
"Did you know that Carr and his daughter have gone away?" Thompson asked
abruptly.
Tommy nodded.
"Donald Lachlan--I've been trapping partners with him, y'know--Donald
was home a month or so since. Told me when he came back that the Carrs
were gone. I wasn't surprised."
"No?" Thompson could not forbear an inquiring inflection on the
monosyllable.
"No," Tommy continued a bit wistfully. "I was talking to Carr a few days
after you and I had that--that little argument of ours." He smiled. "He
told me then that after fifteen years up here he was inclined to try
civilization again. Mostly to give Sophie a chance to see what the world
was like, I imagine. I gathered from his talk that some sort of windfall
was coming his way. But I daresay you know more about it than I do."
"No," Thompson replied. "I've been away--a hundred miles north of
Pachugan--for two months. I didn't know anything about it till
to-night."
Tommy looked at him keenly.
"Jolted you, eh, old man?" There was a quiet sympathy in his tone.
"A little," Thompson admitted grimly. "But I'm getting used to jolts. I
had no claim on--on them."
"We both lost out," Tommy Ashe said thoughtfully. "Sophie Carr is one
woman in ten thousand. I think she's the most remarkable girl I ever
came across anywhere. She knows what she wants, and neither of us quite
measured up. She liked me too--but she wouldn't marry me. Before you
came she tried to convince me of that. And I wasn't slow to see that you
interested her, that as a man she gave you a good deal of thought,
although your--er--your profession's one she rather makes light of.
Women are queer. I didn't know but you might have taken her by storm.
And then again, I rather imagined she'd back off when you got serious."