He was with the inspector perhaps twenty minutes, when he accompanied the latter to the dining camp. They had breakfast and returned to the dock, whence the superintendent soon shot out in his red racing boat which tore its way out of sight on the rolling expanse of Superior.
II
The tug bearing Hammond to Kam City was well out on the lake when Acey Smith returned. He tied the red racer up in its berth on the limits docks and immediately made his way to his office. The enthusiasm that had sat upon his face when he had departed earlier in the day was gone. In its place was a tired, worried look.
As he entered the office, a handsome, dark-eyed young woman seated by a window dropped a book to her lap and looked up.
“Waiting long, Yvonne?”
The inquiry was casual but kindly. He whipped open a drawer of his desk, filled a silver cigarette case from a large tin box. Then he fitted a cigarette in an amber holder and lighted it.
“Just since the tug came in.” There was a suggestion of pique in the girl’s tones that went unnoticed. Her gaze followed his every movement with fascinated intensity. But when he looked her way her eyes fell quickly.
Followed a long pause. Acey Smith stood looking out a window, half turned to her, the while he drew hungrily at the cigarette, his eyes in an abstracted stare.
“Has something happened? Is—is anything wrong?”
He turned at the deep anxiety in Yvonne’s tones. “No, nothing wrong, Yvonne—I’m just a bit spent. It’s been a trying morning.”