"What about the cabin?"
"He ain't here. And it's locked, see? Yuh'd think he kept the crown jewels there." The tickling scent of a cigarette drifted back to the two in hiding. "Beats me how he slipped away this morning without Pitts catching on. For two cents I'd spring that lock of his—"
"Isn't worth the trouble," replied the other decisively. "These trappers have no money except at the end of the fur season, and then most of them are in debt to the storekeepers."
"Then why—"
"I sometimes wonder," the voice was coldly cutting, "why I continue to employ you, Red. What profit would I find in a cabin like this? I want what he knows, not what he has."
Having thus reduced his henchman to silence, the speaker went on smoothly, as if he were thinking aloud. "With Simpson doing so well in town, we're close to the finish. This swamper must tell us—" His voice trailed away. Except for the creaking of wood when the sitter shifted his position, there was no other sound.
Then Red must have grown restless, for someone stamped up to the platform and rattled the chain on the cabin door aggressively. Val flattened back against the wall. What if the fellow took it into his head to walk around?
"Gonna wait here all day?" demanded Red.
"As it is necessary for me to have a word with him, we will. This waste of time is the product of Pitts' stupidity. I shall remember that. It is entirely needless to use force except as a last resource. Now that this swamper's suspicions are aroused, we may have trouble."
"Yeah? Well, we can handle that. But how do yuh know that this guy has the stuff?"