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We had dinner at Billy Woods's place, and a sensible Christmas dinner it was everything cold, except the vegetables, with the hose going on the veranda in spite of the by-laws, and Billy's wife and her sister, fresh and cool-looking and jolly, instead of being hot and brown and cross like most Australian women who roast themselves over a blazing fire in a hot kitchen on a broiling day, all the morning, to cook scalding plum pudding and redhot roasts, for no other reason than that their grandmothers used to cook hot Christmas dinners in England.
There came a little twitching at the corner of Woods's broad mouth. He made no answer. "Hear me?" snapped Steve. "Sure I hear you," said Woods insolently. "So does Blenham; he's right inside where he can hear. I guess it's him you want to talk with. I'm takin' my orders off'n Blenham an' nobody else." "I've talked already with Blenham.
I'd hate to see as fine a rig as that going through town squeaking like a rusty wheelbarrow." "All right," responded the proud owner of the pony and cart. "Pomp will get it for me." "Good Lord!" Fred Dill said in his throat, and he went at once to Seth Woods's shoe-shop, where there was a group of loafers, and told the last bit of news.
But that's the way to play the game!" The door of the cook's shed, facing him from across the creek, was still closed. Steve moved a dozen paces down-stream; now he could command Woods's cabin with the tail of his eye, look straight into the kitchen when the door opened, keep an eye upon the one little square window. "It's all in the cards," he told himself grimly.
Mr. Woods was at the block-house at Walla Walla, and the cabin was unprotected. The light was fading in the tall pines of the valleys, and there was a deep silence everywhere, undisturbed by so much as a whisper of the Chinook winds. Mrs. Woods's thoughts seemed far away doubtless among the old meadows, orchards, and farm-fields of New England. Gretchen was playing the musical glasses.
I dispatched messenger after messenger to Generals Howard, Logan, and Woods, and received from them repeated assurances that all was being done that could be done, but that the high wind was spreading the flames beyond all control. These general officers were on the ground all night, and Hazen's division had been brought into the city to assist Woods's division, already there.
The next morning, viz., February 17th, I rode to the head of General Howard's column, and found that during the night he had ferried Stone's brigade of Woods's division of the Fifteenth Corps across by rafts made of the pontoons, and that brigade was then deployed on the opposite bank to cover the construction of a pontoon-bridge nearly finished.
With one watery eye he looked from one to the other of the two men bursting in on him. "Blenham," cried Packard, standing over him while he was careful not to lose sight of Joe Woods's working face, "I want work stopped here and this crowd of men off the ranch. You heard what I said outside, didn't you?" Blenham answered heavily: "Woods, don't you pay no attention to what this man says.
It struck him that they had all been talking of him; he knew that they must have marked those signs which Joe Woods's fists had left on his face; he stood a moment looking in on them, conscious for the first time of his rapidly swelling right eye, seeking to estimate what these men made of him. It seemed to him that the one emotion he glimpsed on all hands and in varying degrees, was distrust.
The will in Billy's favour was dated a week earlier than the one they had found in the secret drawer. It was worthless, mere waste paper. At the last Frederick R. Woods's pride had conquered his love. "Oh, the horrid old man!" Margaret wailed; "he's left me everything he had! How dare he disinherit Billy! I call it rank impertinence in him. Oh, boy dear, dear, dear boy!"
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