I
As the tug swung out with a great churning astern, Hammond caught the eye of the skipper looking out of the wheel-house above. Chuckling over the antics of the chagrined camp preacher, he jerked his head for Hammond to come up.
“Take a seat.” The genial-faced captain motioned Hammond to the cushioned bench at the back of the tiny wheel-house. “The sky-pilot seemed to be all fussed up about something, didn’t he?”
“Yes,” replied Hammond. “I’m at a loss to know what came over him all of a sudden. As a rule he never appeared to notice I existed around the camp.”
“Oh, I guess he’s harmless, from what I hear,” agreed the captain, “but you can never tell just what’s what about some of these queer birds they let hang around that camp. There’s that old Medicine Man, for instance, I wouldn’t trust my back to him two minutes in the bush.”
“Ogima Bush? You think he’s dangerous?”
The skipper yanked at the lever of the steam steering-gear and swung the tug due west outside the channel through the pulp booms. “There ain’t any bully in the camp will take chances on crossing him,” he said significantly.
“You’d think the superintendent would have him run off the limits.”
“He daren’t, even if he wanted to,” declared the captain. “It’s long odds that old crock is cahoots with the Big Boss. At least everybody’s got that notion.”
“Speak of the devil,” he exclaimed next minute, “there’s the Big Boss heading for camp now.”
Hammond leaped to his feet and looked where the captain was pointing. Sure enough he could discern the superintendent’s red racing motorboat tearing over the water from a point the other side of Amethyst Island, bow up in air with a crash of foam under its midships.
“Try the glasses,” suggested the captain. Hammond fitted them to his eyes and adjusted the lenses. Acey Smith, at the wheel, was the only occupant of the tiny cockpit.
“Smith talked of going over to Kam City this afternoon,” suggested Hammond.
“Yes, he told me yesterday he was in a hurry to get things cleaned up so he could get away in time,” replied the other. “He intended to catch the night train for Montreal.
“Suppose you know there’s trouble on among the tug-men?” he queried turning from the steering-lever a moment.
“Strike?”
“Yes, and if the tugmen go out it means the pole-cutters and the white boom-tenders at the limits will down tools in sympathy tying everything up as tight as a river-jam.”
“Likely Smith’s going to Montreal to talk it over with some of the heads of the company, eh?” Hammond was sparring for more information.
“I dunno.” There came a faraway look in the captain’s blue eyes. “Hon. J. J. Slack, of Kam City, is supposed to be top dog of this outfit, and then again some think he’s only a straw boss. But if you asked a lot of people they’d tell you the real head push of this outfit hangs out in a place that’s a lot hotter than Montreal or Kam City.”
Hammond was scarcely paying any attention to the captain’s words. He had the glasses trained on Amethyst Island which they were now passing. The place had a deserted look. The doors of Josephine Stone’s cottage were closed and there was not a sign of life on the island. That seemed queer—very queer. Perhaps, he conjectured, she had gone over to their meeting-place on the beach and was expecting him to happen along.
But he swept the beach with the glasses for a glimpse of her in vain. Presently, two scarlet-coated policemen emerged from the bush on the mainland and walked up the rise to a bell tent that was pitched on the crown of the hill. There one apparently flung an order to his companion, and the latter set off at a loping run in the direction of the pulp camp.
A depressing presentiment swept over Hammond. He would have liked to have asked the captain to turn in and let him off at Amethyst Island, but he didn’t quite dare do that.