Hopwood nodded. “They all said you had run away like all the others, and Foster has been taking most of the credit for it.”
Scott ground his teeth. “I suppose that will set him up in business again with the rest of the family.”
“A lot of them believed it, but now that you have come back he will probably have to leave the country himself. None of them will believe him now.”
“Well, tell them that I have come back, Hopwood, and I’ve come back to stay. They will find out before I am through that I am not very badly scared after all.”
“Has any one taken the logging contract?” Hopwood asked eagerly. “It would help me if I could predict it right,” he added wistfully.
Scott looked at him curiously a moment. The more he saw of Hopwood the harder it was for him to believe him an idiot. In any event it was perfectly clear that he was devoted to him and he decided to make him his confidant. It could not do him much harm if the man of the iron hat did not keep faith in this and it might make him a closer friend.
“Yes, Hopwood, some one has bid on it. You can safely predict that the logging will begin in ten days, for—but you must not publish this part of it—if no one else takes the job I am going to resign and take it myself.”
“Oh!” Hopwood exclaimed with a gasp of satisfaction. “I won’t tell them but you don’t know how much good it will do me to know that.” And without waiting to make his usual mysterious disappearance he walked quickly into the woods to carry the news of Scott’s return.
Scott was not surprised to find that no one had responded to his call for bids. He had found out in Asheville that there was practically no chance of any one showing any interest in it. He hoped no one would. He had to confide his plans to the station agent because he had to send a number of telegrams. Probably Caspar had never done such a business in telegrams before in all its existence, even when the feud was at its height.
For the next week Scott devoted all his time to a careful study of the area which was to be logged. From breakfast till supper-time every day he hiked over the mountains, running out the boundary lines, sketching the topography and tentatively locating the logging roads. This work led him through the territory and by the cabins of many of the Waits but he did not see any of them. They seemed to be sulking in their tents.