Page:Cornelia Meigs-The Pirate of Jasper Peak.djvu/239

 wait, and to watch for results. Laughing Mary sat on her heels on the floor opposite him, nodding with drowsiness while both of them were  watched unwaveringly, as the long hours passed,  by the pale eyes of that helpless figure in the bunk,  the broken, ruined Pirate of Jasper Peak.

And Laughing Mary, since no one pressed her for her story, or disturbed her dim, wandering  mind by questions, finally began to speak. She startled Hugh first by rising suddenly, fetching  something from the corner and flinging it upon  his knee.

“Should be yours—make all the trouble,” she said brokenly.

Hugh, in wonder, held it up to the firelight. It was the brown bear’s skin!

He had learned by now that it was better to say nothing and so sat silent, without question or  comment for a long time. He was rewarded by her telling him the whole truth at last in abrupt,  queerly-spoken sentences, uttered at long intervals, often after an hour had gone by without a  word. Little by little he was able to piece