Argosy, Vol. 120, No. 1 — page 27: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

THE. DEBT. and then she turned her face away to hide the trembling of lips and the threatened dimming of her eyes. He wriggled un- easily,. stricken with that embarrassment natural to man in the presence of tears. “You cheer up!” he said _ gruffly. “ Harry’s kind of crotchety on account of the bad luck this winter, but he don’t mean a word he says. I’ve seen him like that before, Molly. He’ll get over it.” “He thinks—I’m a drawback!”’ “ Shucks!”” He got up and stamped around the room. ‘ He don’t think no such thing as that! Why, he could go and I’d stay here, only—”’ David, not given to the habit of con- cealing his thoughts, had blurted out some- thing he would rather not have said—or so nearly blurted it out that she under- _ Stood. - “Only he might even be jealous of us!” she finished for him. ' That, somehow, made further talk im- possible. Burns, even though he hated to entertain the thought, knew that Molly had spoken the truth. For the first time he realized that Harry Stowe, brooding over bad luck and burdened with an obligation that hindered his freedom, was not his pros- perous and unfettered partnel of other years, This puzzled David, and he felt as though he were mentally stumbling through underbrush. How could a man with a wife like Molly fail to be happy? How could anybody doubt her perfect fidelity, even in & tan- trum? Of course, he told himself, Harty would not even think such a thing except when he was in a fit of the blues. A long meditation was broken by the re-' turn of Stowe. He came staggering into the kitchen, in a swirl of wind-blown snow, with a clanking burden over his shoulder. He dumped a score or more traps down in the light of the single oil-lamp to which necessity had reduced them and stood pant- ing from his battle with the storm. Burns walked over and knelt beside the pile, won- dering. ‘What in the world are you taking in traps in this storm for?” he began, and let his voice die away as he looked closer. He rubbed the snow from one of them and 2 ARGOSY -—-- —_—_— hl 17 lifted it to the light. ‘“‘ Why, this has got Fred Abare’s mark on it!” “It won’t have, after I’ve put a file on it,” said Stowe, calmly. “ We'll have a big f to-morrow if the storm lets up so I can get down to the vilage—and I’ll buy enough chewing to last for a while, you can bet your bottom dollar on that!” David stood still, holding the trap ‘in his hand. He saw that Molly was standing still, too, and looking at her husband. Dave did not know what to say. It was far from good form to question the ethics of another man, even one’s partner, on Mink Hilt: on the other hand, it passed the boundary- line of what was square to tamper in any way with another man’s line of traps. It was not done except by those individuals who were more or less pariahs in the moun- tains. Yet Burns made allowance for his partner, knowing how tight their belts were. ‘So you're going to sell Abare’s traps?” he asked, rather feebly. “Yes, and what of it?” retorted Stowe with an outthrust lower lip. “Ill make it up to him some way out of my pay on the drive.” Burns guessed that this was a sop for Molly, because it could not be made up without seli-betrayal; but he was more con- cerned with the announcement that Stowe was gojng on the drive, after all. He went back to the fire and sat down again be- fore he spoke. _, ‘If we’re both going on the drive we can get trusted for all we want down to the village,” he suggested. ‘““ Ask favors and go in debt?” Stowe shrugged. ‘‘ You get in debt to a man and he’s got a hold on you. I won’t do it.” With that flat refusal the matter was dropped; nor did either of the men revive the discussion when Stowe came home the next afternoon through a sparkling, sunlit world of white with his shoulders bent under a pack of provisions. He had a dozen plugs of tobacco, bacon and tea and. sugar and other staples: and Burns saw that the hands of Molly were not quite steady as she sorted the packages out upon the kitchen-table. That supper, although it was prepared with all the deliciousness that Molly knew how to give to food, tasted like chips in the EO 1NOO S CO@