"There's somebody outside," she said, and laughed as she noticed the bewildered consternation in her brother's eyes. "If it's Ingleby I don't think I'll let him in."
Her voice was almost as steady as usual, and apparently Leger alone noticed the suggestion of strain in it, while next moment she crossed the room and threw the door open. It was narrow, however, and she stood carefully in the middle of it.
"You're not coming in, Walter, until you cut some wood," she said. "You never touched the axe the last time you came."
Hetty's nerve almost failed her during the next few moments, and she felt the throbbing of her heart while the man the others could not see blinked at her stupidly. She dare venture no plainer warning, and he was apparently dazed with cold and weariness.
"I'm not going to stand here. It's too cold," she said. "If you're too lazy to do what I tell you, I'll ask the corporal."
Then she banged the door to, and went back to her seat with a little laugh that sounded slightly hollow to her brother, at least.
"If there's one thing Walter doesn't like it's chopping wood--and that's why I wouldn't let him off," she said. "He hasn't troubled to come round and see me for a week. I'm vexed with him."
Now, the corporal was, of course, aware that throughout most of Western Canada visitors to a homestead not infrequently lighten their hostess's labour by washing the dishes or carrying wood. In the case of the miners, who were pleased to spend an hour at the bakery, chopping wood for the oven was the most obvious thing, though those specially favoured were now and then permitted to weigh out flour or knead the bread. There was thus nothing astonishing in what Hetty had apparently said to Ingleby, nor did Sewell, who provoked the corporal into an attempt to prove that the troopers' carbine was a more efficient weapon than the miners' Marlin rifle, appear to notice anything unusual, and only Leger saw that Hetty's colour was fainter than it had been and that she was quivering a little.
In the meanwhile there was a tramp of feet outside, which grew less distinct, until the ringing chunk of the axe replaced it, and Leger wondered how he could make Sewell understand that it was desirable to cut the discussion short. He could think of no means of doing it and glanced at Hetty anxiously, for how long the corporal meant to stay was becoming a somewhat momentous question. A man accustomed to the axe can split a good deal of wood in ten minutes, even when he works by moonlight; and it was evident that the one outside could not continue his chopping indefinitely without the corporal's wondering what was keeping him.