"I've had no letter," she answered. "I've had no letter from Selby for a
month. It was all settled then, and there was no good writing, when he
was coming to-morrow with the minister and the licence. Who do you
think'd be postman from Selby here? It must have cost him ten dollars to
send the last letter."
"Then what's the matter? I don't understand," the old man urged
querulously. He did not want her to marry and leave him, but he wanted no
more troubles; he did not relish being asked awkward questions by every
mountaineer he met, as to why Jenny Long didn't marry Jake Lawson.
"There's only one way that I can be married tomorrow," she said at last,
"and that's by you taking a man down the Dog Nose Rapids to Bindon
to-night."
He dropped the pigeons on the floor, dumbfounded. "What in--"
He stopped short, in sheer incapacity, to go further. Jenny had not
always been easy to understand, but she was wholly incomprehensible now.
She picked up the pigeons and was about to speak, but she glanced at the
bedroom door, where her exhausted visitor had stretched himself on her
bed, and beckoned her uncle to another room.
"There's a plate of vittles ready for you in there," she said. "I'll tell
you as you eat.
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