Stella wondered what pleasure he found in their company, but she never asked him, nor did she devote very much thought to the matter.  There was but small cessation in her labors, and that only because six or eight of the men drew their pay and went out.  Benton managed to hold the others against the thaw that might open up the woods in twenty-four hours, but the smaller size of the gang only helped a little, and did not assist her mentally at all.  All the old resentment against the indignity of her position rose and smoldered.  To her the days were full enough of things that she was terribly weary of doing over and over, endlessly.  She was always tired.  No matter that she did, in a measure, harden to her work, grow callously accustomed to rising early and working late.  Always her feet were sore at night, aching intolerably.  Hot food, sharp knives, and a glowing stove played havoc with her hands.  Always she rose in the morning heavy-eyed and stiff-muscled.  Youth and natural vigor alone kept her from breaking down, and to cap the strain of toil, she was soul-sick with the isolation.  For she was isolated; there was not a human being in the camp, Katy John included, with whom she exchanged two dozen words a day.

Before the snow put a stop to logging, Jack Fyfe dropped in once a week or so.  When work shut down, he came oftener, but he never singled Stella out for any particular attention.  Once he surprised her sitting with her elbows on the kitchen table, her face buried in her palms.  She looked up at his quiet entrance, and her face must have given him his cue.  He leaned a little toward her.

“How long do you think you can stand it?” he asked gently.

“God knows,” she answered, surprised into speaking the thought that lay uppermost in her mind, surprised beyond measure that Be should read that thought.

He stood looking down at her for a second or two.  His lips parted, but he closed them again over whatever rose to his tongue and passed silently through the dining room and into the bunkhouse, where Benton had preceded him a matter of ten minutes.

It lacked a week of Christmas.  That day three of Benton’s men had gone in the Chickamin to Roaring Springs for supplies.  They had returned in mid-afternoon, and Stella guessed by the new note of hilarity in the bunkhouse that part of the supplies had been liquid.  This had happened more than once since the big snow closed in.  She remembered Charlie’s fury at the logger who started Matt the cook on his spree, and she wondered at this relaxation, but it was not in her province, and she made no comment.

Jack Fyfe stayed to supper that evening.  Neither he nor Charlie came back to Benton’s quarters when the meal was finished.  While she stacked up the dishes, Katy John observed: 

“Goodness sakes, Miss Benton, them fellers was fresh at supper.  They was half-drunk, some of them.  I bet they’ll be half a dozen fights before mornin’.”