“By the way,” in a more friendly tone, “how was J.J. looking when you last saw him?”
“Pretty fit, though he seemed worried.”
“Politics is a hell of a game, isn’t it?” pronounced Acey Smith. “But you had better be turning in; you look mussed up and tired. You bunk with the head cook in the little shack next door up. First thing in the morning slip over to the camp store and get a bush outfit. Those parlour duds of yours are high-sign invitations to the ‘flu,’ and we don’t encourage funerals.”
Hammond thanked him, said good-night and turned to leave the room. His hand was on the door-latch when Acey Smith seemed to glide through the air to his side. He felt his wrist seized in a grip of steel.
“Spy!”
It came a hissing accusation that sent Hammond’s hot blood to his head. He flung the other free of him. “No, damn you,” he answered fiercely, “and I’m not a timber wolf either!”
He could not have explained what inspired him to say that, but at the words, Acey Smith cowered back as one might from the clinging clout of a logging whip. Hammond did not know that a man’s face could at one moment hold so much of evil as leaped at him from Smith’s. His head jerked back and the eyes that darted fire at Hammond were no longer the eyes of a human being. The taut lips bared back from the even white teeth in a hateful snarl; then Acey Smith’s hands went up to his face convulsively, the palms cupping his lower features.
He whirled on a heel like an Objibway in a war dance. Next instant when he faced Hammond he was laughing quietly. “We’ll drop the play-acting,” he said, “and I’ll take you up and introduce you to your shack-mate, Sandy Macdougal, the cook.”
“You are sure I am not a spy?”
“I am satisfied you are not what I feared for your own welfare you might have been. Let’s go.”