“Oh, and I’ll bring some cake and bread, if I can dodge Kate.  I’ll put up a lunch as if it were for me.  Kate had good luck with her bread this time.  I’ll bring all I dare.  And, Jack,—­you aren’t really uncomfortable up there, are you?  Of course, I know it gets pretty cold, and maybe it’s lonesome sometimes at night, but—­you stayed alone all summer, so—­”

“Oh, I’m all right.  Don’t you worry a minute about me.  Run along home now, before you make Kate sore at you again.  And don’t forget to let me know if you’re coming.  I’ll meet you right about here.  So long, pardner.”  He stuffed the package of cigarettes into his coat pocket and plunged into the balsam thicket behind him as though he was eager to get away from her presence.

Marion felt it, and looked after him with hurt questioning in her eyes.  “He’s got his cigarettes—­that’s all he cares about,” she told herself resentfully.  “Well, if he thinks I care—!”

She went slipping and stumbling down the steep wall of the gulch, crossed it and climbed the other side and came upon Kate, sitting in the snow and holding her right ankle in both hands and moaning pitiably.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

PENITENCE, REAL AND UNREAL

Kate rocked back and forth, and tears of pain rolled down her cheeks.  She leaned her shoulder against a tree and moaned, with her eyes shut.  It frightened Marion to look at her.  She went up and put her hand on Kate’s shoulder with more real tenderness than she had felt for months.

“What’s the matter, Kate?  Did you hurt yourself?  Is it your ankle?” she asked insipidly.

“O-oh!  Marion, you keep me nearly distracted!  You must know I only want to guard you against—­oh—­gossip and trouble.  You seem to look upon me as an enemy, lately—­Oh!—­And I only want to consider your best interests.  Who is that man, Marion?  I believe he is a criminal, and I’m going to send word to the sheriff.  If he isn’t, he is welcome at the cabin—­you know it, Marion.  You—­you hurt me so, when you meet him out here in this sly way—­just as if you couldn’t trust me.  And I have always been your friend.”  She stopped and began moaning again.

“Now, don’t cry, dear!  You’re simply upset and nervous.  Let me help you up, Kate.  Is it your ankle?”

“Oh, it pains dreadfully—­but the shock of seeing you meet that strange man out here and knowing that you will not trust me—­”

“Why, forevermore!  I do trust you, Kate.  But you have been so different—­you don’t trust me, is the trouble.  I’m not doing anything awful, only you won’t see anything but the wrong side of everything I do.  I’d tell you about the man, only—­” Marion glanced guiltily across at the place where Jack had disappeared, “—­it’s his secret, and I can’t.”

Kate wept in that subdued, heartbroken way which is so demoralizing to the person who has caused the tears.  Like a hurt child she rubbed her ankle and huddled there in the snow.