She remembered that she had read in some of those defenses of him, which had been published in reply to the muckraking attacks, that sometimes Lucas Cullen had suffered through the overzealousness of weak underlings who had misunderstood his purposes and done things for which he unjustly was blamed, Kincheloe was a weak underling, capable of complete misconceptions or of criminal bunglings of a commission. Ethel did not argue herself out of belief that her grandfather had instigated Kincheloe to take some action against Barney Loutrelle,—to frighten him off, perhaps, as Bagley seemed to have been frightened.
She regained the shore and put on her skis. The woods were empty and silent. Approaching St. Florentin, everything seemed as usual on a winter morning. At some distance she could hear the exhaust of the gasoline engine pumping water and charging the batteries for the day; she could hear an axe at leisurely intervals, and she knew that Sam Green Sky was comfortably employed in the wood-shed.
She had kept a lookout for Kincheloe while proceeding through the woods and, coming in sight of the road to Quesnel, she glanced down it to see if he might be making off. She thought that probably he had escaped from the neighborhood by this time, and she was considering ways of having him overtaken when the front door of her grandfather's house opened and Kincheloe appeared upon the porch. The sight startled her, particularly as he seemed undisturbed, and as he stood, without cap or coat, watching her approach. He returned into the house in a moment, leaving the door slightly open, so that she went in at once and met her grandfather coming down the hall from his office.
