“Did you ever see him, Captain Winters?” Dick asked curiously.
“Not more’n a couple o’ times, my boy. He don’t come around often. Sometimes folks don’t set eyes on him for weeks at a time; then again, he’ll come down to town in his autermobile. He’s a smallish, bald man, not much to look at. Some say he’s cracked, but I ain’t comitten’ myself.”
The captain pursed up his lips and shook his head slowly with the air of one who could tell a good deal more if he only would. In reality, he had already exhausted his small store of wisdom regarding Scott Randolph, who remained a perplexing mystery that the old gossip had never been able to solve.
“Can you tell me how I can find this place?” Dick asked.
“I kin,” answered the captain, “but it ain’t likely to do you much good, cause he never lets anybody inside the door. Howsomever, you kin try, if you have a mind to. You know where Bonnet Trail is, I s’pose?”
“Runs out to the mountains a little south of Georgetown, doesn’t it?” Dick asked.
“Yep. About twenty miles out is Duncan. It ain’t much of a place; jest a few houses an’ Jake Pettigrew’s store. Randolph’s place is some four miles from there, as I recollect. You’d better ask Jake, though, an’ he’ll tell you right.”
Dick arose from the chair.
“Thank you very much, Captain Winters,” he said, holding out his hand. “I’m very glad to have met you, and shall see you again while I’m here.”
“Don’t mention it,” returned the old man. “Let me know if you get inter Randolph’s. I’m kinder curious.”