“I suppose you have had that channel watched?”
“Watched, I had Murphy hidden up there on a point of land for a month and the logs disappeared out of the boom right along just the same.”
“Are you sure that Murphy is all right?”
“Murphy, why, he thinks more of the Service than the Secretary of Agriculture does. No, sir, it is not graft, I am sure of that; but I would give a good deal to know what it is.”
“Do they disappear before or after you scale them?”
“Did go both before and after. We scale them all in the woods now before they put them in the boom, but they are going out of the boom just the same.”
There was a long pause while both men frowned unseeing across the beautiful lagoon. Scott was thinking of the ranger who had been the leader of the sheep gang in the West and wondering how he could best get a check on Murphy. Mr. Graham had long ago gotten past the point where he could think about it logically at all.
“Has the thing been going on ever since?” Scott asked.
“For two solid years,” Mr. Graham answered peevishly. “I have put about half my time on the pesky thing and Murphy hangs around there like a baited bulldog. The foreman is almost crazy about it. He has all but accused the ‘’gators’ of eating the logs.”
“I suppose they take some rafts out occasionally?”