“Git your hoss then. You kin sleep here.”
Dolf went obediently after his animal. Steve Gilders shut his eyes and smiled. It was a peculiar thing to see. Somehow it was not reassuring, but exceedingly sinister. He had read Zaanan’s message correctly. He knew what to do.
When Dolf came back Gilders was gone, nor did Dolf see his host again that night. But that worried Dolf very little. Indeed, it must be said he slept more comfortably for Gilders’s absence.
At sunrise Gilders appeared out of the woods, strode lithely into the shanty, laboriously wrote a letter to Zaanan—which he sealed carefully—and delivered it to Dolf.
“I calc’late you’d better make tracks for town,” he said.
Dolf did not argue the matter.
CHAPTER X
When Jim Ashe returned to the mill after his conversation with Zaanan Frame he found the machinery idle, employees pouring out of the entrances. He walked past them and into the building in a frame of mind that would have rendered him undesirable as a dinner companion. Another breakdown!
He found Nelson and Beam standing below a couple of mechanics who were working over a pair of big gears. They only nodded curtly at his approach, for apparently their patience, like Jim’s, was close to the fusing-point.
“Now what?” Jim asked.