She had passed through what she termed a culinary inferno. Nothing, she
considered, could be beyond her after that unremitting drudgery.
But Benton failed to come back on the appointed day. The four days
lengthened to a week. Then the _Panther_, bound up-lake, stopped to
leave a brief note from Charlie, telling her business had called him to
Vancouver.
Altogether it was ten days before the _Chickamin_ whistled up the bay.
She slid in beside the float, her decks bristling with men like a
passenger craft. Stella, so thoroughly sated with loneliness that she
temporarily forgot her grievances, flew to meet her brother. But one
fair glimpse of the disembarking crew turned her back. They were all in
varying stages of liquor--from two or three who had to be hauled over
the float and up to the bunkhouse like sacks of bran, to others who were
so happily under the influence of John Barleycorn that every move was
some silly antic. She retreated in disgust. When Charlie reached the
cabin, he himself proved to be fairly mellow, in the best of
spirits--speaking truly in the double sense.
"Hello, lady," he hailed jovially. "How did you fare all by your
lonesome this long time? I didn't figure to be gone so long, but there
was a lot to attend to. How are you, anyway?"
"All right," she answered coolly. "You evidently celebrated your log
delivery in the accepted fashion."
"Don't you believe it," he grinned amiably. "I had a few drinks with the
boys on the way up, that's all.
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