Outside the mess tent he hesitated an instant. Then he entered the other tent. This time he did not pause by the door, but crossed hastily to the farther corner, where there was a small space crudely partitioned off from the main portion. This would be Schaeffer’s sanctum, of course, and Bob entered it curiously—only to stop with an exclamation of mingled surprise, anger, and chagrin.
The place was in the utmost disorder. Blankets were rolled up in a ball and flung into the corner. Articles of wearing apparel were scattered about, while over everything were sifted scraps of white paper in seemingly endless quantity. It was these torn scraps that roused Bob’s indignation. He seemed to know intuitively, without the evidence of the limp, empty book covers here and there, that the foreman had taken time to tear into shreds every record and paper connected with the drive which he possessed. Time books, scalers’ measurements—everything—had been destroyed practically beyond the possibility of reconstruction. There would be no accurate way now by which the firm could figure their profits or costs or labor charges. The very paying of the drive crew would be a matter of guesswork.
“Jove!” exclaimed Bainbridge through his clenched teeth. “I didn’t know a man could be so rotten!”
He stared at the wreck for a minute longer, and then turned over with his foot the square, wooden box which lay upset in the middle of the mess. Apparently it had served Schaeffer as a receptacle for these same records. It was quite empty, but underneath lay something which brought a thoughtful, questioning expression into the searcher’s face, and made him stoop to pick it up.
“Thirty-eight caliber,” he murmured, staring at the freshly opened pasteboard box which had contained fifty cartridges. “Hum!”
Presently he let it drop again. He did not move for a space, but stood staring at the ground with that same odd, thoughtful pucker in his forehead.
There was nothing surprising in the fact of Schaeffer’s being armed, Neither was it strange for a man in the riverman’s position to carry off his ammunition loose instead of in the box. That was not the point. It was simply the train of thought aroused which struck Bainbridge unpleasantly. He felt Schaeffer to be capable of almost any villainy provided it could be accomplished with safety to himself. The humiliation of that fight, too, had added a powerful incentive to the one already offered by Crane and the Lumber Trust for the eclipse of Bob Bainbridge. And a total eclipse would be so easy! Just a single shot fired from the bushes at a moment when there was no one else about to see or hear. In this wild country the chances of escaping were infinite. The man might not even be suspected.
Bob suddenly moved his shoulders impatiently, frowned, and turned away. A moment later his eyes twinkled mirthfully.
“Another minute and I’d have the undertaker picked out,” he chuckled. “The scoundrel hasn’t the common courage to do murder. All the same,” he added, with a decisive squaring of the shoulders, “I’ll put a crimp in his little game about those records. I’ll have cookee scrape ’em all up, and ship the whole bunch down to John. That clerk, Wiggins, can put ’em together, I’ll bet! Patience is his middle name—patience and picture puzzles. We’ll have the laugh on Pete, after all—hanged if we won’t!”