An avaricious look instantly settled on the old man’s face.
“Waal, I’ll let ye my bo’t fer that,” he said, “an’ take chances on her; but if you hev her more’n to-morrow arternoon you must pay a dollar an hour for her.”
“After what time?”
“Ten o’clock ter-morrer night.”
“All right. If I am not back before that, I shall not return till the next day. Here is a dollar to bind the bargain.”
Frank found the people of Forest City would not say much about Enos Dugan, save that he was a bad man to have anything to do with. He was told that Dugan sometimes came into the settlement on a drunk, and then everybody steered clear of him, for he was liable to do injury to his friends, if he could find no enemies on which to wreak his wrath.
Of course, Frank did not tell them that he had struck Dugan with his fist and knocked the man into the river at Brownville, for he realized that he would be regarded as a liar. And he did not tell them why he had followed Dugan to that wild part of the country. He let the impression get out that it was Hilda Dugan he especially wished to see.
No one in Forest City spoke of Dugan as a smuggler. It was plain to Frank that not a single person in the place cared to talk about smugglers and smuggling.
Directly after dinner on the following day, Frank was ready to leave Forest City. He had been given directions how to find Dugan’s Island, and he felt sure he could not miss it.