“Oh, I guess he’s harmless, from what I hear,” agreed the captain, “but you can never tell just what’s what about some of these queer birds they let hang around that camp. There’s that old Medicine Man, for instance, I wouldn’t trust my back to him two minutes in the bush.”
“Ogima Bush? You think he’s dangerous?”
The skipper yanked at the lever of the steam steering-gear and swung the tug due west outside the channel through the pulp booms. “There ain’t any bully in the camp will take chances on crossing him,” he said significantly.
“You’d think the superintendent would have him run off the limits.”
“He daren’t, even if he wanted to,” declared the captain. “It’s long odds that old crock is cahoots with the Big Boss. At least everybody’s got that notion.”
“Speak of the devil,” he exclaimed next minute, “there’s the Big Boss heading for camp now.”
Hammond leaped to his feet and looked where the captain was pointing. Sure enough he could discern the superintendent’s red racing motorboat tearing over the water from a point the other side of Amethyst Island, bow up in air with a crash of foam under its midships.
“Try the glasses,” suggested the captain. Hammond fitted them to his eyes and adjusted the lenses. Acey Smith, at the wheel, was the only occupant of the tiny cockpit.
“Smith talked of going over to Kam City this afternoon,” suggested Hammond.
“Yes, he told me yesterday he was in a hurry to get things cleaned up so he could get away in time,” replied the other. “He intended to catch the night train for Montreal.