“Some motion picture get-up that,” Hammond observed when the door closed behind him. “An Indian chief, I suppose?”
“No, worse than that,” sniffed the cook. “He’s what they call a medicine man; even the whites out here step out of the trail to let that bird pass. Besides, one’s got to be civil to them red-skinned loafers,” he explained, “because the super. is in some way cahoots with them and their pagan deviltry. Some say he’s really one of them only he happened to be born white.”
Hammond had to laugh over the other’s rueful seriousness. “But is Smith really out?” he questioned. “I saw a lady come off the tug this morning and go into his office.”
“A pretty little devil with dark eyes and a flashy set of furs?”
Hammond nodded.
“That’s Yvonne,” said Sandy the Cook. “Yes, and maybe she wasn’t rearin’ mad when she found the Big Boss was out. She’s got to go back on the tug this morning, and nobody here, not even Mooney, the assistant super., knows where Smith’s gone or when he’ll be back.”
Breakfast finished, Hammond lit his pipe and strolled out intending to look up the camp store and secure the bush clothing Acey Smith had the night before advised him to rig out in. At the door his attention was attracted to the dock by the tooting of the tug now making ready to pull out. Two figures stood in earnest conversation at the foot of the tug’s tiny gangway. The one was the girl in the sable furs and picture hat and the other was a tall, black-bearded man in a rusty black suit, the coat of which was over-long and square cut at the bottom.
“Now I wonder what Yvonne is chinnin’ to that old goof about?” speculated the cook at Hammond’s shoulder. “He’s another character that just bumped into camp a day or so ago.”
“Looks like some sort of a preacher,” hazarded Hammond.
“That’s what he calls himself—Rev. Nathan Stubbs,” replied Sandy. “He holds psalm-singing sessions nights and Sundays, but he’s never around camp through the day when the Big Boss is here. The Big Boss gave Mooney orders to keep him out of his sight because he always made him feel like committin’ murder. Smith’s funny that way; some people he takes a violent dislike to right away.”