God's sake, baby him, Bella. Don't start being a grandmother before
you've ever been a sweetheart. You're too young for the one even if
you're getting a bit too old for the other!"

Bella flushed deep and hot. She went to her place, and Pete hobbled
to his, opposite his brother. Between them the woman sat, dyed deep
in her sudden unaccustomed wave of scarlet. Pete's whiteness too was
stained in sympathy. But Hugh only chuckled. "As for the pelts," he
said royally, "I'll take them down myself."

Bella looked slowly up.

"You think I don't mean it, I suppose?" Hugh demanded.

They did not answer, but the eyes of the boy and the woman met. This
silence and this dumb exchange of understanding infuriated Garth.
He clinched his hands on the carved arms of his chair and leaned a
little forward.

"I'll take the pelts myself," he repeated boisterously. "I'm not
afraid to be seen at the station. I'm sick of skulking. Buried
here--with _my_ talents--in this damn country, spending my days
trapping and skinning beasts to keep the breath in our three useless
bodies. Wouldn't death be better for a man like me? Easier to bear?
Fifteen years of it! Fifteen years! My best years!" He stared over
Pete's head. "In all that time no beauty to feed my starved senses,
no work for my starved brain, no hope for my starved heart." The woman
and the youth watched him still in silence. "That fox I killed this
morning had a better life to lose than I."