“You two men go along and tell the boys to let him look till he’s tired,” said Joe to Haggarty and Jackson. “Don’t scrap with him, remember.”
“Well, we’ll try not,” said Haggarty. “That’s Mike Callahan wid him—a divil!”
“You do what I tell you!” Joe snapped, and Haggarty and Jackson uttered a suddenly respectful “Yes, sir.”
In half an hour Jackson came for Joe. He found Rough Shan at the banking grounds. Before him lay a little pile of thin, round circles of wood; also sawdust. McCane picked one circle up and handed it to him.
It was a slice cut from the end of a saw log. One side was blank. On the other the letters “CB” proclaiming the ownership of Clancy Brothers were deeply indented.
“Well, what about it?” asked Joe.
“What about it!” Rough Shan repeated. “Here’s the ends sawed from our marked logs. Then ye mark them fresh for yerself. A nice trick! That’s jail for some wan.”
“Pretty smooth,” said Joe. “Saves you the trouble of hauling the logs in here, doesn’t it? One man could carry these ends in a sack.”
Rough Shan glared at him. “I want them logs, an’ I want them now,” he cried with an oath.
“All right; take them,” Joe retorted. “Of course you’ll have to match these ends on the logs they belong to. Possibly you overlooked that little detail. Haggarty, you see that he makes a good fit.”