d
awakened, and Jack had told him what was planned.

It was almost too much for Husky. His objections and entreaties were
unnoticed. Fully dressed but somewhat shaky, he was now sitting on the
edge of his bed. Sam still slept in the corner.

From the character of the silence that greeted her, Bela instantly
apprehended that something was in the wind.

"What for you get up so early?" she demanded.

"Bela, we got something to say to you," Big Jack began portentously.

"More talk?" asked Bela.

"This is serious."

"Well, say it."

"Let's go outside," said Joe nervously. "It's suffocating in here."

Filing out of the shack, they stood against the wall in a row--Big
Jack, Black Shand, Husky, and Young Joe. Bela stood off a little way,
watching them warily.

It had a good deal the look of a spelling-bee with a teacher who meant
to stand no nonsense. But each of the men was taking it very
seriously. Each was pale, tight-lipped, and bright-eyed with
excitement, excepting poor Husky, whose eyes were harassed, and whose
mouth kept opening and shutting.

"'Tain't fair! 'Tain't fair!" he kept muttering. "Look at me, the
state I'm in, and all!"

"Well, what you want say?" demanded Bela.

Big Jack stood up straight and brought his heels together. He had been
a soldier in his time. He felt that it was a great moment. An honest
bluntness gave him dignity.

"I got to open this matter," he said, "before each man speaks for
himself." He glanced at his companions. "If any man here thinks he can
explain it better, let him speak out."

"Ah, go ahead, and cut it short!" muttered Shand.

"Yesterday," Jack resumed, "it may have seemed as if we acted like a
parcel of unlicked schoolboys. I own I am sorry for my part in it. But
I don't see how I could have done different. A man can't let another
man get ahead of him when there's a woman in the case. It can't go on
with the four of us here, and nobody knowing where he stands. So I
proposed that we end it this morning by putting it up to you."

The other men were moving impatiently.

"Ah, cut out the preliminaries!" growled Joe.

Jack was direct enough when he got ready to be. "Are you married?" he
asked Bela point-blank.

Bela was a stranger to the tremors and blushes imposed upon civilized
women at such a crisis. "No," she said with her inscrutable face.

"Do you want to be?"

She shrugged with fine carelessness. "I suppose I got get 'osban' some
tam."

"Well, take