British Columbia -- Fiction; Man-woman relationships -- Fiction; Revenge -- Fiction; Sawmills -- Fiction
"But after all," said George, "I hear that the woman isn't dead, Mac,
and what's more she lets on that it wasn't my brother that hurt her."
He looked at the sawyer.
"Good girl," said Mac, "but he did it right enough, Sir; he talked of
nothing else all the way across."
"But if she dies what she says won't be everything," said George.
"It's best he should stay. Thank you for going with him. Gibbs is
taking your saw."
"Hell he is," said Mac pensively; "has he had trouble with White?"
But Quin hadn't heard of it. Just of late White hadn't gone to the
office with so many complaints. Since the spiking of the logs Quin
had been less easy to deal with. He was troubled in his mind about
Pete, and about Jenny. If Pete had spiked the logs, as Quin
believed, he was capable of anything. And poor little Jenny was
about to be a mother. It wouldn't be more than a month or two now.
Until Jenny had come into his life in real earnest, the Mill, the
Stick Moola, had been the man's whole desire. He loved it amazingly:
there wasn't a plank in it he didn't love, just as there wasn't a job
in it that he couldn't do in some fashion, and no fool's fashion
either. He had run the old Moola "good and strong," caring for
everything, seeing that it had the best of everything. There wasn't
a makeshift in it: it was a good Mill and Quin was a good manager.
An accident of any kind hit him hard. For accidents there must and
will be when saws are cutting lumber. To have a man killed troubled
him, even if it were a sheer accident. But to have a man killed by a
spiked log was very dreadful to him. It was the more dreadful that
he had provoked the spiking. It shook Quin up more than he had ever
been shaken. It broke his nerve a little, just as it had broken
Ginger's. And by now he was very fond of Jenny, even if he cursed
her, as he sometimes did. He dreaded this devil of a Pete, who
wasn't the kind of Siwash that one found among the meaner tribes, the
fishing, begging Indians. He had some red and ugly blood in him. He
got on Quin's nerves.
And then Mary was Pete's sister. If she hadn't been he would never
have known Jenny, and if he had given Pete a job it would have been
like giving it to any Siwash. Now Pete would be more than ever down
on them both. George began to think it worth while to find out where
Pete was. He sent up to Kamloops to ask. At the same time he sent
word to the hospital that Mary was to have anything she wanted.
There was a deal of good in George Quin, and somehow little Jenny
brought it out.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account