"What happened?" she cried wildly. "Tell me, quick."
"It's quick told," Howe said grimly. "We were ready at daylight.
Monohan's got a hard crew, and they jumped us as soon as we started to
clear the channel. So we cleared them, first. It didn't take so long.
Three of our men was used bad, and there's plenty of sore heads on both
sides. But we did the job. After we got them on the run, we blowed up
their swifters an' piles with giant. Then we begun to put the cedar
through. Billy was on the bank when somebody shot him from across the
river. One mercy, he never knew what hit him. An' you'll never come so
close bein' a widow again, Mrs. Fyfe, an' not be. That bullet was meant
for Jack, I figure. He was sittin' down. Billy was standin' right behind
him watchin' the logs go through. Whoever he was, he shot high, that's
all. There, mother, don't cry. That don't help none. What's done's
done."
Stella turned and walked up to the house, stunned. She could not credit
bloodshed, death. Always in her life both had been things remote. And as
the real significance of Lefty Howe's story grew on her, she shuddered.
It lay at her door, equally with her and Monohan, even if neither of
their hands had sped the bullet,--an indirect responsibility but
gruesomely real to her.
God only knows to what length she might have gone in reaction. She was
quivering under that self-inflicted lash, bordering upon hysteria when
she reached the house. She could not shut out a too-vivid picture of
Billy Dale lying murdered on the Tyee's bank, of the accusing look with
which Fyfe must meet her.
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