Mrs. Appleton, with an unintelligibly muttered excuse, hurriedly followed, leaving her husband gazing from her retreating back to the excited face of the youngster, and muttering: "Bless my soul! Bless my soul!" between the gulps of his coffee, which for once in his life he swallowed with never a growl at the canned milk. A moment later he abruptly left the table and, motioning the boy to follow, led the way to the office. A half-hour passed, and Charlie left the building under the strictest kind of orders not to mention to Bill Carmody either Ethel or the bonds. Puzzling his small head over the inexplicable doings of grown-up people, he wandered toward the cook-shack to hunt up Daddy Dunnigan, with whom he had already struck up a great friendship. "She loves him and he loves her," he muttered to himself as he scuffed his brand-new moccasins through the soft snow, "and each one tries to let on they don't. And Uncle Appleton won't let me tell Bill _she_ does so he'd go and tell her _he_ does; and then old man Carmody and his bonds could go to the _devil_! "You bet, I hope I never get in love and act like a couple of fools. Now, I bet she'll marry that _sniffit_, and he'll marry Blood River Jack's sister." The boy paused and glanced speculatively at the falling snow. "I wonder if he wants to? Anyhow, I can ask him that much." Later, in the office, Mrs. Appleton broke in upon her husband's third black cigar. There was no doorway connecting the office with the other two rooms, and the lumberman watched the snowflakes melt on his wife's hair as she seated herself directly in front of him. "Well, Hubert Appleton, this is a nice mess you have got us into, I must say!" "_Me!_" grinned the man. "Why, little girl, this is your party." "I wish you would tell me who it was that suggested leaving out young Mr. Holbrooke, and coming here so that Ethel could meet this _man_?" "She--er--met him--didn't she?" "You needn't try to be facetious! What are you going to do about it?" "Who--me? Oh, just stick around and watch the fun." "Fun! Fun! Hubert Appleton, aren't you _ashamed_ of yourself? And that poor girl in there crying her eyes out! Fun, indeed--it's _tragedy_!" "There, there, little woman; don't let's get excited. It's up to us to kind of figure things out a bit; but the young folks themselves will be the real actors. "Now, just how much--or, how little did she tell you?" "She told me _everything_. Poor dear, it did her good. She has had nobody to tell--nobody to cry with her and sympathize with her." When his wife concluded, H. D. Appleton had received a very accurate chronicle of the doings of Bill Carmody from the time of his boyhood until chance threw them together in the smoking-compartment of the west-bound sleeper. The lumberman listened attentively, without interrupting, until his wife finished. "Does she think Bill took those bonds?" he asked.