“Yes,” Scott replied firmly, “I’m going to resign but I’m not going to be run out of the country. I want to resign and take that logging contract myself.”
Mr. Johns looked at him a moment in open-mouthed astonishment. “Do you mean that?” he asked eagerly.
Scott nodded. “If it will be all right with you. I am going to put in my bid. I had some experience logging my own timber last winter, you know, and I’d be willing to spend my last dollar to beat that feud down there.”
His chief thought a moment. “It’s a bit irregular, and I’ll have to take it up with the forester, but under the circumstances I believe it can be done.”
The upshot of the matter was that Scott started back for North Carolina the next day with the assurance that if no one else made a satisfactory bid, his resignation would be accepted and he would be awarded the contract.
Three days before he had been hoping for some one to bid on that same contract; now he was praying with all his heart that no one would.
CHAPTER XV
SCOTT HEARS SOME RUMBLINGS OF THE OLD FEUD
Scott stopped for a day in Asheville to make some business arrangements for starting the logging operations in case he was awarded the contract and then hurried back to Caspar. He found Hopwood, who had constituted himself his faithful follower, waiting for him in the corner of the hotel yard.
“I knew you’d come back,” Hopwood remarked in a tone of extreme satisfaction.
“Why?” Scott asked. “Did any one think that I was not coming back?”