IT was a cold day in Manistee. The snow lay in high banks on each side of the street-car tracks, with paths cut through at the crossings and in front of the larger stores; underfoot it creaked and crunched. Men walked briskly, keeping their hands in their pockets or holding them over ears or noses, and pausing at the drug store on the corner to look at the red thermometer.

It was close to noon, and a number of men were coming down a flight of stairs which reached the sidewalk a few doors beyond the drug store. The last one was Hunch Badeau, with his ulster collar turned up, his cap pulled down over his ears, and his fur mittens on.

When they reached the street two of the other men turned and shook hands with him; but he had nothing to say, and a moment later he was walking alone, slowly, up the bridge approach. The examination was over and he was free. His case had not reached a trial, for he had killed Considine plainly in self-defense.

A long row of schooners, steamers, and tugs lay along the docks on both sides of the river. On most of the schooners a length of stovepipe came out of a cabin window, and a few wisps of smoke, winding lazily out to be snatched away by the wind, showed that many a sailor was lying dormant during the winter months. Hunch lingered on the bridge. He had once spent such a winter in Chicago on a big schooner, locked up snugly in the North Branch near Goose Island, eating and sleeping, smoking and swapping yams, and helping to drink up somebody’s summer profits. That was a long while ago; it seemed to Hunch a dim part of some past life, before he had ever met a woman other than the rough girls of the Chicago levee and the North Peninsula stockades.

Mr. Jackson had told Hunch that he need not go back to work that day, so he climbed to his room and sat on the chair by the window. Bruce’s things were lying about the room; his razor on the bureau, his Sunday clothes over a chair in the closet, his shoes under the foot of the bed. Hunch got up and began to get them together, without knowing exactly why he was doing it. He packed what he could in the patent-leather valise, and made up the rest into bundles, borrowing paper and string from the landlady. Then he sat down again, but before long, too restless to stay alone, he put on his coat and walked out to the mill. Mr. Jackson was standing near the waste dump with a memorandum book in his hand.

“Well, Badeau, what’s the matter?”

“Nothing. Guess I might’s well get to work.”

“Just as you like.”

The men looked surprised when he joined them. He was nervous and he worked both himself and them at a pace that wore them out in a few hours. But at six o’clock, when the whistle blew, and he put on his coat and went back to the boarding-house, he felt refreshed.

On Sunday, after several days of hesitating over the best way to get Bruce’s things to Mamie, Hunch gathered up the bundles and the valise, and took the noon train to Liddington. He sat for two hours in the station before he could make up his mind to take them to Joe Cartier’s house. When he finally knocked at the door, Joe’s wife opened it.

“How d’ye do, Mr. Badeau? Come in, won’t you?”

“No, I can’t,” said Hunch. “Hold on; yes, I will, too, just a minute. Where’s Joe?”

“Here he is,” replied Joe himself, coming through the hall in his shirt-sleeves. “Come in, and set down.”

Hunch stepped in and dropped the bundles in the corner.

“Can I speak to you a minute, Joe?”

“Sure thing. Walk in the front room. Martha, I could swear Hunch ain’t had his dinner. Fetch out some of the chicken and potatoes. It ain’t so hot as it was, Hunch, but it’s good, plain stuff—good enough for us, ain’t it, Martha?”

“No, don’t you, Mis’ Cartier. I can’t stay, honest. I had some grub, anyhow.”

But Joe’s wife hurried out to the kitchen, leaving Joe and Hunch in the front room.

“Take off your coat, man,” said Joe. “What you getting so bashful about all of a sudden?”

Hunch unbuttoned his coat, nervously.

“Is she staying here yet, Joe?”

“Who’s that you mean, Hunch? Bruce’s wife? She’s going up to her father’s tomorrow.”

“How’s that happen?”

“Well, I’ll tell you, Hunch—you won’t say anything about it, of course—but when Bruce—when he died, you know, and I knowed th............