"When your boy's born, what then?"

"Ah!"

Bat's fists clenched at the sound of the other's ejaculation. It was the
nervous clenching at a sound that threatened danger. Swift as a shot he
followed up his challenge.

"Your pore gal's down there in Quebec hopin' and prayin' to hand you
that boy child you reckon Providence is going to send you. Well, when he
gets along, and Hellbeam's around--and--"

Bat broke off. Standing had risen from his chair. He had moved swiftly,
his lean figure propelled towards the window by long, nervous strides.
His voice came back to the man at the table, while his eyes gazed down
upon the waters of Farewell Cove, over the widespread roofs of the great
groundwood mill, the building of which was the result of his seven
years' sojourn on the Labrador coast.

"You've handed it me, Bat," he said, in a quick, nervous way. "I'll
fight. I know. You guess I'm scared at Nisson's news. Maybe I am, I
don't know. I'm not a man of iron guts. Maybe I never shall be. It's
hell to me to feel a shadow dogging my every step. Yes, you're right.
It's been a nightmare, and now--why, now it's real. But get your mind at
rest. I'm going to fight Hellbeam all I know. And with the thought of
Nancy, and the boy she's going to give me, I don't need a thing else.
No."

"That's how I figgered."