“Do you always tie up at the same place?”
“Can’t always make it, Cap’n,” the darky grinned. “De tide, she say whar to tie up.”
“Have much trouble getting your raft out through the swamp last night?”
The darky rolled his eyes a little suspiciously. “No, boss, she come through mighty slick.”
Scott saw now that the darky was lying fluently and knew that there was no chance to get any more truth out of him, if, indeed, they had gotten any at all.
“Well, Mr. Brown,” he said, speaking loud enough for the darkies to hear, “I guess the scale is all right. We thought maybe they were slipping some extras into the rafts, but we seem to have been mistaken. I hope you will pardon me for suspecting you, but it is my business right now to suspect every one.”
“Suspect all you please,” Mr. Brown laughed, “but let’s go down to dinner. I wish I were getting those logs. They do not bring me any too many and I have very few on reserve in the pond.”
They accepted Mr. Brown’s invitation to dinner but started up river immediately afterwards.
“Now we’ll see what became of those two extra sections,” Scott said with determination as they lost sight of the mill.
Murphy did not answer. He had not seen those extra sections himself and he was not altogether convinced that Scott had seen them either. Scott knew how Murphy felt about it and that made him all the more determined to find them and prove that he was right.