And I've got to go back to that cabin after a while!" He spoke it as another man might say: "And an hour from now I have to face the firing squad." But when he returned to the cabin, he heard no outburst of reproaches from White Henshaw.

The door to Henshaw's bedroom was closed, and McTee could hear the captain stirring about in it, working at some nameless task over which he hummed continually, now and then breaking into little snatches of song.

McTee was stupefied.

He tried to explain to himself by imagining that Henshaw was one of those hard-headed men who live for the present and never waste time thinking of the past.

He had made many plans for his granddaughter.