Standing’s retort was instant.  And the tone of it cut like a knife.

Bat regarded him keenly.  His knife had ceased from its work on the plug.

“That’s so,” he said after a while.  Then his gaze drifted in the direction of the house across the water, and the expression in the grey depths of his eyes became lost to the man who could not forget that the remaining child of his wife was the offspring of another man.  “It seems queer,” he went on reflectively.  “That woman, your Nancy, was about the best loved wife, a fellow could think of.  She was all sorts of a woman to you.  Guess she was mostly the sun, moon, an’ stars of your life.  Yet her kiddie, a pore, lonesome kiddie, was toted right off to school so she couldn’t butt in on you.  You’ve never seen her, have you?  And she was blood of the woman that set you nigh crazy.  Only her father was another feller.  No, Les.”  He shook his head, and went on filling his pipe.  “No, Les, this mill and all about it can go hang if that pore, lone kiddie is wiped out of your reckoning.  Maybe I’m queer about things.  Maybe I’m no account anyway when it comes to the things of life mostly belonging to Sunday School.  But I’d as lief go back to the woods I came from, as handle a proposition for you that don’t figger that little gal in it.  You best take that as all I’ve to say.  There’s a heap more I could say.  But it don’t matter.  You’re feelin’ bad.  Things have hit you bad.  And you reckon they’re going to hit you worse.  Maybe you’re right.  Maybe you’re wrong.  Anyway these things are for you, though I’d be mighty thankful to help you.  You want to go out of it all.  You want to follow up some queer notion you got.  You reckon it’s going to give you peace.  I hope so.  I do sure.  The thing you’ve said goes with me without shouting one way or the other.  It grieves me bad.  But that’s no account anyway.  But there’s that gal standing between us, and she’s going to stand right there till you’ve finished the things you’re maybe going to say.”

For a moment the men looked into each other’s eyes.  It was a tense moment of sudden crisis between them.

“Well?”

Bat’s unyielding interrogation came sharply.  Standing nodded.

“I hadn’t thought, Bat,” he said.  Then he drew a deep breath.  “I surely hadn’t, but I guess you’re right.  She’s my stepdaughter.  And I’ve a right to do the thing you say.  Yes.  It’s queer when I think of it,” he went on musingly.  “When I married her mother the girl didn’t seem to come into our reckoning.  She was at school, and I never even saw her.  Then her mother wanted her left there, anyway till her schooling was through.  Everything was paid.  I saw to that.  But—­yes, I guess you’re right.  It’s up to me, and I’ll fix it.”

“The mill?”

“She shall have equal share when the time comes.”

“When the whole work’s put through?”

“Yes.  And meanwhile she’ll be amply provided for.”  Standing spread out his hands deprecatingly.  “You see, we did things in a hurry, Bat.  There was always Hellbeam.  And my Nancy understood that.  I wonder—­”