"None nearer than the Moscript place at Echo Lake."
"Then what can it be?" Suddenly Houston frowned with presentiment. "Thayer's been going with Medaine a good deal, hasn't he?"
"Oui—yes. When Ba'teese can think of no way to keep him from it."
"It couldn't be that he's made some arrangement with her—about her forest lands?"
"They are not hers yet. She does not come into them until she is twenty-one."
"But they are available then?"
"Oui. And they are as good as yours."
"Practically the same thing, aren't they? How much of the lake does she own?"
"The east quarter, and the forests that front on eet, and the east bank of Hawk Creek."
"Then there would be opportunity for everything, for skidways into the lake, a flume on her side and a mill. That must be—"