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“Sorry? I guess not. I haven’t decided what I’ll do yet,” he added. “I’m going down to my place and think about it, and mebby get some beaver skins. The last time I was down I saw signs of them on a little creek. They’re mighty scarce now. Uncle Amasa says they won’t be a beaver between here and Cincinnati next year.”

Milly felt relieved. The place Jimmy spoke of was an almost unbroken strip of forest, about five miles away, on which Jimmy had made “tomahawk improvements”—girdled a few trees and planted a little patch of corn. He and Uncle Amasa had built a cabin there, and sometimes stayed there for weeks on end when Maria was more than usually fiery-tempered. Trappers knew the little cabin well.

“You won’t go till Marion gets through with the lumber sawing?” she asked. “There’ll be so few men at the settlement if they have to help saw lumber up at Marietta.”

Jimmy could not see her face, but her matter-of-course tone staggered him. He wondered if girls could really feel things—if they had real pride; if they understood what it was to smart under a wrong until the pain cried for a sharp revenge. He shut his teeth on the hard words that came to him, and after a moment, said quietly: