Part 28

She opened her eyes wide at his brusqueness.

“I'm visiting Jane,” she replied at length, with an affectation of demureness.

“Are you going to be here long?” was Orde's next question.

“About a month.”

“I am coming to see you,” announced Orde. “Good-night.”

He took her hand, dropped it, and followed the others into the hall, leaving her standing by the lamp. She watched him until the outer door had closed behind him. Not once did he look back. Jane Hubbard, returning after a moment from the hall, found her at the piano again, her head slightly one side, playing with painful and accurate exactness a simple one-finger melody.

Orde walked home down the hill in company with the Incubus. Neither had anything to say; Orde because he was absorbed in thought, the Incubus because nothing occurred to draw from him his one remark. Their feet clipped sharply against the tar walks, or rang more hollow on the boards. Overhead the stars twinkled through the still-bare branches of the trees. With few exceptions the houses were dark. People “retired” early in Redding. An occasional hall light burned dimly, awaiting some one's return. At the gate of the Orde place, Orde roused himself to say good-night. He let himself into the dim-lighted hall, hung up his hat, and turned out the gas. For some time he stood in the dark, quite motionless; then, with the accuracy of long habitude, he walked confidently to the narrow stairs and ascended them. Subconsciously he avoided the creaking step, but outside his mother's door he stopped, arrested by a greeting from within.

“That you, Jack?” queried Grandma Orde.

For answer Orde pushed open the door, which stood an inch or so ajar, and entered. A dim light from a distant street-lamp, filtered through the branches of a tree, flickered against the ceiling. By its aid he made out the great square bed, and divined the tiny figure of his mother. He seated himself sidewise on the edge of the bed.

“Go to Jane's?” queried grandma in a low voice, to avoid awakening grandpa, who slept in the adjoining room.

“Yes,” replied Orde, in the same tone.

“Who was there?”

“Oh, about the usual crowd.”

He fell into an abstracted silence, which endured for several minutes.

“Mother,” said he abruptly, at last, “I've met the girl I want for my wife.”

Grandma Orde sat up in bed.

“Who is she?” she demanded.

“Her name is Carroll Bishop,” said Orde, “and she's visiting Jane Hubbard.”

“Yes, but WHO is she?” insisted Grandma Orde. “Where is she from?”

Orde stared at her in the dim light.

“Why, mother,” he repeated for the second time that day, “blest if I know that!”

Orde was up and out at six o'clock the following morning. By eight he had reported for work at Daly's mill, where, with the assistance of a portion of the river crew, he was occupied in sorting the logs in the booms. Not until six o'clock in the evening did the whistle blow for the shut-down. Then he hastened home, to find that Newmark had preceded him by some few moments and was engaged in conversation with Grandma Orde. The young man was talking easily, though rather precisely and with brevity. He nodded to Orde and finished his remark.

After supper Orde led the way up two flights of narrow stairs to his own room. This was among the gables, a chamber of strangely diversified ceiling, which slanted here and there according to the demands of the roof outside.

“Well,” said he, “I've made up my mind to-day to go in with you. It may not work out, but it's a good chance, and I want to get in something that looks like money. I don't know who you are, nor how much of a business man you are or what your experience is, but I'll risk it.”

“I'm putting in twenty thousand dollars,” pointed out Newmark.

“And I'm putting in my everlasting reputation,” said Orde. “If we tell these fellows that we'll get out their logs for them, and then don't do it, I'll be DEAD around here.”

“So that's about a stand-off,” said Newmark. “I'm betting twenty thousand on what I've seen and heard of you, and you're risking your reputation that I don't want to drop my money.”

Orde laughed.