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Whaley thought there was and said so with finality. He did not give his real reason, which was that he wanted to pay back to McRae and his daughter the debt he owed. They had undoubtedly saved his life after he had treated her outrageously. There was already one score to his credit, of course. He had saved her from West. But he felt the balance still tipped heavily against him.
While he waited there alone, Jim McIver's mind went back over the strange incidents of the evening: Helen's visit to the Whaley home and her coming to him. Swiftly he reviewed their conversation. What was it that had so awakened Helen's deep concern for the laboring class?
"Yes, massa, he all w'at 'em got now, but git more at Massa Whaley plantation win 'em git da." "Gih-e-wh-ew! Massa, I trow 'im o'board, Massa Whaley scratch 'em back, sartin. He tink 'em fust-rate.
In the darkness Whaley used the axe as best he could at imminent risk to his legs. Though they worked only a few feet apart, they had to shout to make their voices carry. "We better be movin' back," West called through his open palms. "We got all we can haul." They roped the wood and dragged it over the snow in the direction they knew the house to be.
Young Perry had his own horse and his negro, and was the only inhabitant, besides the Judge, of the old black brick, square, colonial house on the brink of the river that house whence the light had gone in lurid flight when the young wife, in the bravado of her shame, departed forever. Judge Whaley was able, with his intellectual sympathy, to observe that his boy was apt and right-minded.
He was perfectly civil, but there was something particularly irritating in the way Whaley named David Lorimer. So the two men sat almost silent before the camp fire until midnight. Then Whaley said, "Mr. Lorimer, your son is at liberty now. You'll excuse me saying that the shorter you make your palaver the better it will suit me."
Was he, away down out of sight, the kind of man toward women that West and Whaley were? She wouldn't believe it. He had never taken an Indian woman to live with him. There was not even a rumor that he had ever taken an interest in any Cree girl. Of course she did not like him not the way she did Win Beresford or even Onistah but she was glad he held himself aloof.
Whaley the many other wives and mothers with Bobbies and Maggies who were caught helplessly in the monstrous net of the strike, as these were caught. She knew now why the Interpreter and Billy Rand worked so hard. And again she felt her cheeks burn with shame as when the old basket maker had said, "For every idle hand "
We'll find caribou in some of the coulées along the creek. What say?" The convict looked at him with sly cunning. "How about this girl? Think I'm gonna leave her to mush out an' put the police on my trail? No, sir. I'll take her snowshoes with me." Whaley shrugged his shoulders. "She couldn't find her way home if she had shoes. But please yourself about that." West's shifty gaze slid over him.
Whaley did not intend to lift a hand for her. He had sat there and let West work his will. "Angus McRae gave me instructions aplenty," he explained maliciously. "I was to keep my hands off you. I was to mind my own business. When you see him again if you ever do will you tell him I did exactly as he said?" She did not answer. What was there to say?
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