"Whose cabin is this?" he asked abruptly as he pulled up a stool.
The boy hesitated for a second, and then apparently decided that there was no harm in telling the truth. "It belongs to Owen Stark," he said.
"Stark!" the corporal nodded. So this was the shack that Mudgett had mentioned. "Who's Owen Stark? I don't know him."
"A trapper," was the reply. "He intends to live here this winter."
"What about you? You're not a woodsman."
"No," admitted the other after a pause. "Stark invited me to visit him—for the fall hunting. I don't expect to stay much longer."
"Where's Stark now?" the policeman asked as he applied himself to his plate.
"He went up the valley somewhere—probably twenty miles or so north of here. Left two days ago, and I wouldn't expect him back much before to-morrow. Looking for places to run his trap line."
Dexter offered no comment. It was a plausible enough story—if Stark were really a trapper. Yet there was something anxious and overstrained in the boy's speech, as though he might be inventing his answers. Or again, perhaps it was only his arm that troubled him.
"Stark went off and left you here alone?" the corporal asked with a slantwise glance.