The man seemed to start. He gazed keenly at Jerry for a second, and then looked along the line of fence. In many places the boundary mark had fallen over, because the posts holding the wire had rotted away. In other sections there was no fence at all, but there were enough posts, and sufficient wire, to indicate where the fence had originally run.
“I don’t know you, young man,” said the foreman, speaking slowly, “but you speak as though you knew what you were talking about,” and his tone was more respectful than at first.
“I do know,” was Jerry’s brief answer.
“And you say you’re on your mother’s land there?”
“We are.”
“Then you must be——”
“Jerry Hopkins,” supplied the tall lad, with a twinkle in his brown eyes.
“Ah, yes. We did hear that Mrs. Hopkins owned a strip of land somewhere about here, but we didn’t know just where it was. And, as my company happens to have bought up most of this swamp, we didn’t care to have the public walking about it. It’s dangerous—for the public,” he added, with what he evidently meant for a frank smile. But, somehow, in spite of that smile, Jerry and the boys took an instinctive dislike to the man. He did not seem sincere.
“Yes, it is a bit dangerous in here,” agreed Jerry, looking across to where the men had been digging. Piled about them were heaps of the stiff, yellow clay, which underlay the top layer of slime and mud. “I don’t get here very often myself.”
“Well, since you are here, let me introduce myself,” went on the man. “I am Rickford Fussel. Sorry I can’t give you a card, but I don’t carry them when I’m out prospecting.”