That was what Louis Hammond had seen, momentarily, when Acey Smith had gripped his wrist at the door. It had brought upon Hammond an unknown fear that it took all his strength of will to hide.
But now, in the privacy of his midnight meditations, conflicting emotions were mirrored in the countenance of the master of the Nannabijou camps. As he sat pondering by his desk the remnants of that evil light leaped alternately to his eyes only to dissipate in a softer glow that seemed to signal the triumph of some better element of his nature.
Two problems assailed Acey Smith—one the hidden reason for sending Louis Hammond to the limits and the other the haunting eyes of a beautiful woman whose visit to his office earlier in the evening had brought a magical surprise.
It was not that either of their visits was unexpected. He had been apprised of their coming through the North Star’s own channels of information. “As for Hammond,” he finally deduced, “he’s merely a stool-pigeon—nothing more. But for what purpose? There’s what must be found out right away.”
He picked up Slack’s letter of introduction. It was a somewhat different epistle from what he had inferred it was to Hammond:—
Dear A.C.S.—The bearer, one Louis Hammond, has evidently got something on the Big Quarry, who wants us to keep him hidden on the limits at a good salary. It might be a good idea to hang onto him and draw him out. What he knows might be of value to us.
J. J. Slack
Acey Smith tore the letter into tiny shreds and dropped them into the stove. “Slack,” he passed judgment, “has about as much real thinking matter above his eyebrows as a yellow chipmunk.”
II
Hammond and Slack were soon out of Acey Smith’s thoughts. He paced the floor in slow, thoughtful strides, every now and then pausing to gaze at a certain point near the door. An onlooker would have been amazed at the metamorphosis that had come over the man. The harsh lines had receded from his face and a something came in their place that in another might have been taken for the light of a tender sentiment.
Memory of a gentle presence gripped him, gripped him with the thrill of a golden song and an abandonment to its witchery that was a back-cry from a youth this man of iron had never lived in its fullness.