“How long do you want to think about it?” Jeff demanded, ignoring the possible wishes of Cynthia and Frank.

“I guess I could let you know by night.”

“All right,” said Jeff.

He was turning away, when Whitwell remarked: 

“I don’t know as I should want to stay without I could have somebody I could depend on, with me, to look after the hosses.  Frank wouldn’t want to.”

“Who’d you like?”

“Well—­Jombateeste.”

“Ask him.”

Whitwell called to the Canuck, and he came forward to the edge of the mow, and stood, fork in hand, looking down.

“Want to stay here this winter and look after the horses, Jombateeste?” Whitwell asked.

“Nosseh!” said the Canuck, with a misliking eye on Jeff.

“I mean, along with me,” Whitwell explained.  “If I conclude to stay, will you?  Jeff’s goin’ abroad.”

“I guess I stay,” said Jombateeste.

“Don’t strain yourself, Jombateeste,” said Jeff, with malevolent derision.

“Not for you, Jeff Dorrgin,” returned the Canuck.  “I strain myself till I bust, if I want.”

Jeff sneered to Whitwell:  “Well, then, the most important point is settled.  Let me know about the minor details as soon as you can.”

“All right.”

Whitwell talked the matter over with his children at supper that evening.  Jeff had made him a good offer, and he had the winter before him to provide for.

“I don’t know what deviltry he’s up to,” he said in conclusion.

Frank looked to his sister for their common decision.  “I am going to try for a school,” she said, quietly.  “It’s pretty late, but I guess I can get something.  You and Frank had better stay.”

“And you don’t feel as if it was kind of meechin’, our takin’ up with his offer, after what’s—­” Whitwell delicately forbore to fill out his sentence.

“You are doing the favor, father,” said the girl.  “He knows that, and I guess he wouldn’t know where to look if you refused.  And, after all, what’s happened now is as much my doing as his.”

“I guess that’s something so,” said Whitwell, with a long sigh of relief.  “Well, I’m glad you can look at it in that light, Cynthy.  It’s the way the feller’s built, I presume, as much as anything.”

His daughter waived the point.  “I shouldn’t feel just right if none of us stayed in the old place.  I should feel as if we had turned our backs on Mrs. Durgin.”

Her eyes shone, and her father said:  “Well, I guess that’s so, come to think of it.  She’s been like a mother to you, this past year, ha’n’t she?  And it must have come pootty hard for her, sidin’ ag’in’ Jeff.  But she done it.”

The girl turned her head away.  They were sitting in the little, low keeping-room of Whitwell’s house, and her father had his hat on provisionally.  Through the window they could see the light of the lantern at the office door of the hotel, whose mass was lost in the dark above and behind the lamp.  It was all very still outside.