Scott Burton in the Blue Ridge

by Edward G. Cheyney

When Scott had come to that somewhat Irish decision he felt better. It seemed almost as if the problem had been solved and he began to look about him. His eyes had been fixed absently on the ground all the time and his first upward glance revealed a sight that sent a cold shiver up his back.

A man was sitting on a log not six feet from him, and was staring at him with bright blue eyes. It was startling enough to find any one sitting so close to him when he had thought himself entirely alone, but it was really alarming when the man had a gun in his hand and a large piece of sheet iron on top of his head. At first Scott thought that he must be dreaming, and he blinked his eyes two or three times to try to dispel the illusion, but it would not dispel.

This was really a man. He looked much as other men save for a queer, dreamy look in his eyes, and he was dressed like other men except for his strange head gear. Instead of a hat he was wearing a strange contraption of wood and iron. On the bottom of a sheet of heavy iron about eighteen inches long and a foot wide he had nailed four pieces of wood in the form of a square. This he was wearing on his head like a senior’s mortar board.

All during Scott’s astonished examination, the newcomer sat staring at him without the slightest expression on his weather-beaten face. He was so still that he might have been a statue and his unwavering pose added to Scott’s feeling of his unreality. He finally, after several minutes of astonished silence, recovered sufficiently from the spell to exclaim “Hello.” He said it in a rather startled tone. It did not sound in the least like a friendly greeting, but it seemed to be altogether satisfactory to his visitor. The man’s face relaxed, and a friendly smile lighted it up. Scott was in hopes that he would remove the iron hat, but he did not.

“So you are the new supervisor,” the stranger remarked in a low, pleasing voice.

“Yes,” Scott replied a little stiffly, for he had not entirely recovered from his astonishment, and could not keep his eyes off the iron hat, “I’m the new supervisor. And who may you be?”

“I might be almost anybody,” the man smiled, “but I happen to be Hopwood.”

“Well, I’m sure I don’t know where you came from, Mr. Hopwood. You just seemed to appear on that log as if by magic, but I am glad to know you, all the same.”

“Not Mr. Hopwood,” the man said solemnly, “just Hopwood. Hopwood Wait.”

Scott looked at him with a new interest. So this was one of the Waits, the first one he had seen, and he wondered if the iron hat were a part of the family armor. It might have protected him from an airplane attack, but would have been of little use for anything else. He had understood that the Waits did not come over on this side of the valley. Could this man be scouting in enemy territory or had he come in hope of getting a pot shot at a Morgan? He decided to risk a question.