“If you tell about him in the village,” said Beatrice, growing rather indiscreet in the defense of Olaf, “he may have something to tell about you and my sister and the bear.”
“Oh, I don’t care to talk very much about him for a while,” Dabney declared hastily. “It’s another person I have my eye on—bigger game than Olaf Jensen. I’m trying to find out who took that money and broke up the work down in Ely. And I’ve about found out, too.”
He gave her a long meaning look and turned away.
“Wait!” cried Beatrice. “You don’t mean that you think Olaf——” She could not go on.
“What’s he hanging around here for, afraid to show himself and afraid to go away? Oh, he’s in it all right; he may even have done the actual stealing, but not just for himself. There’s some one else involved—some one higher up. I’ll soon be able to tell who took the company’s money and wrecked the whole project.”
“Who?” the question broke from Beatrice in a cry of anger, but she felt also a sickening dread and foreboding of what his answer would be.
“Oh, I’m not telling—yet,” he replied, quite restored to his usual impudent calm. “He’s a fellow that it will be hard to prove anything against. Most people, even the laborers, talk pretty well of him, and nobody knows anything to his discredit. Nobody knows very much about him at all, as far as I can make out. But I’ve got my proofs all lined up and with just a little more——”
“Who?” cried Beatrice desperately again.
Dabney Mills merely jerked his thumb toward where the lights of John Herrick’s house were shining among the trees. Even as they looked up, the door opened, showing, silhouetted against the light within, Hester and John Herrick standing on the threshold. He turned as though to bid her good-by, then strode down the steps without looking back. She stood, however, with the door still open and the light streaming out, so that they could see him mount his horse and ride away up the trail into the mountains.
“Yes,” said Dabney, “that’s the one.”