“Yes. He said you were a fellow with more money than brains, thanks to a rich father. He also referred to a certain young lady in town by the name of Janet Harting; said you were chasing round after her, but he proposed to get busy and cut you out, as she was the prettiest girl he had seen around here, and would serve to amuse him while he had to stay here.”
King’s face was dark; his hands clenched, and his eyes flashed. A singular ring of yellowish pallor formed round his mouth, his lips drew back from his teeth, and he cried:
“He denied, in her presence, that he was Hazelton, and I know what she thinks of a liar. He won’t amuse himself much with her when I am through with him.”
Thoroughly satisfied, Hutchinson walked slowly toward his window, which looked out on the main street of the town. He had begun the work of undermining the man who had dared express to his face an unreserved opinion of him as a manager, and when he, Hutchinson, was finished, the so-called Tom Locke would be down and done for.
“I have your promise, Mr. King,” said Hutch, “to say nothing concerning the source of your information. I was determined to know the truth about that man, but you can understand that the general public might not approve of my method of obtaining it.”
Suddenly he brushed back one of the coarse lace curtains, and leaned forward to look out of the window.
“I declare,” he said, without the slightest change in his voice, “if here isn’t our man now, carrying a kid on his back; and, on my word, the young lady in question is with him.”
King crossed the room, almost at a bound, snatching aside the curtains. True, Locke was passing on the opposite side of the street, bearing on his back a little boy, whose left foot was bound about with a bloodstained handkerchief. Janet walked beside him; the other children straggled along behind.
There was a roaring in Benton King’s ears, and a reddish mist seemed to flow across his vision like a filmy waterfall in the evening sunlight. Far and wide in lumber land, old Cyrus King was known as a man with a violent and ungovernable temper, deadly dangerous when aroused, and, in this respect, at least, Benton was his father’s son.
“I’ll do up that sneaking, boasting fellow!” he snarled wolfishly, sick to the core with the rage that possessed him.