“Suppose you know there’s trouble on among the tug-men?” he queried turning from the steering-lever a moment.
“Strike?”
“Yes, and if the tugmen go out it means the pole-cutters and the white boom-tenders at the limits will down tools in sympathy tying everything up as tight as a river-jam.”
“Likely Smith’s going to Montreal to talk it over with some of the heads of the company, eh?” Hammond was sparring for more information.
“I dunno.” There came a faraway look in the captain’s blue eyes. “Hon. J. J. Slack, of Kam City, is supposed to be top dog of this outfit, and then again some think he’s only a straw boss. But if you asked a lot of people they’d tell you the real head push of this outfit hangs out in a place that’s a lot hotter than Montreal or Kam City.”
Hammond was scarcely paying any attention to the captain’s words. He had the glasses trained on Amethyst Island which they were now passing. The place had a deserted look. The doors of Josephine Stone’s cottage were closed and there was not a sign of life on the island. That seemed queer—very queer. Perhaps, he conjectured, she had gone over to their meeting-place on the beach and was expecting him to happen along.
But he swept the beach with the glasses for a glimpse of her in vain. Presently, two scarlet-coated policemen emerged from the bush on the mainland and walked up the rise to a bell tent that was pitched on the crown of the hill. There one apparently flung an order to his companion, and the latter set off at a loping run in the direction of the pulp camp.
A depressing presentiment swept over Hammond. He would have liked to have asked the captain to turn in and let him off at Amethyst Island, but he didn’t quite dare do that.
II
It was the captain who interrupted his reverie. “We were talking just now about that camp sky-pilot, the Rev. Nathan Stubbs,” he reminded Hammond. “I was saying that Smith lets Ogima Bush the Medicine Man have the run of the camps because he can use him for his own purposes. Now it’s different with that preacher fellow; it’s always been known that the Big Boss won’t order any kind of a Christian preacher out of camp so long as the preacher sticks to the gospel and his own particular line of trade.”