Summary
A headstrong foundling, Katherine Trowbridge, is cornered by her guardians’ sly matrimonial choreography: the Curtises feign horror at the very union they secretly crave, gambling that the girl’s defiant streak will drive her straight into the arms of their chosen drone, Weathersbee. The ruse combusts when Katherine, smelling deceit, bolts into the wilderness with nothing but spite for dowry and a reckless vow—wed the first taker who crosses her path. That taker is a hirsute giant of the sawmills, in reality Dick Wells, the very sweetheart she once spurned, now cloaked in bark-brown whiskers and taciturn swagger. Their shotgun covenant drags her from lace-parlor privilege to a pine-scented purgatory where cauldrons, axes, and leering loggers replace chaperones. When she bolts a second time, the camp’s rabble-rouser, Kelly, seizes her as both hostage and bargaining chip, dragging her deeper into timbered darkness. A primordial struggle—fists, knives, and splintered cedar—ends with Dick’s bloodied triumph, his false beard ripped away by the field-surgeon’s scissors, revealing the visage Katherine once dismissed but now, through ordeal and hunger, has learned to crave. Recognition collides with desire; the sham marriage transmutes into fierce, earned devotion beneath the dripping boughs.
Synopsis
Katherine Trowbridge, a rebellious young orphan, lives with her aunt and uncle, the Curtises, who desire a match between Katherine and Weathersbee but pretend to oppose the union, knowing she will be the more likely to accept it. Accidentally discovering their trickery, she leaves home and determines to marry the first man who will have her. Consequently she offers herself to a bearded lumberjack (actually Dick Wells, a former suitor in disguise), and he accepts her. She is forced to go to a logging camp and there to cook and otherwise make herself useful. Kelly, a camp agitator, captures Katherine when she tries to escape from her husband, but Dick trails them and rescues her after a savage fight. When the doctor removes Dick's beard to dress a wound, Katherine recognizes him and finds that she has learned to love him.
