It was awkward work going through the dense woods and brush in the dark, but as he expected it was not so very long before he came out into a road. He did not recognize the road at first but he knew that he must turn to the left if he would find the road up which he had come.
About a half a mile further down he came upon an unusually large house and recognized it instantly as Foster Wait’s. There was a light in the room downstairs but the shades were drawn down tight. Scott was looking curiously at the house as he walked by when two silhouettes suddenly appeared on the white shade. He was not surprised to recognize one of them as Foster, but when he recognized the other he stopped short and almost cried aloud. It was Dick.
Ordinarily Scott would have considered it dishonorable to eavesdrop, but he felt sure that the meeting of these two men had something to do with him. What better would Foster want than to get hold of a drunken man who was disgruntled over his treatment at the camp! Maybe that was his purpose in hanging around there.
Under the circumstances Scott had no scruples about attempting to hear the conversation. He determined to crawl up to the window and listen. Hardly had he taken a step in that direction when the loud baying of a hound told him that it was hopeless. As much as he wanted to hear that conversation he beat a hasty retreat. And he was none too soon. The echo of the dog’s bark had hardly died away when he heard the door open and a voice roughly scolding the hound.
Scott hurried down the road while his imagination ran riot in vain attempts to solve Foster’s plans. Foster Wait was not the man to take in a drunken lumberjack unless he intended to make use of him, and Scott felt sure that those plans had something to do with him. At one time he thought of going to Sewall for help, but his pride prevented him. He had protected himself before from smarter men than Foster and he would do it again.
It was long after supper-time when Scott reached the camp; in fact, many of the men had already gone to bed. Fortunately the cook was up making bread, and he went into the cook shack to get a handout. Scott was a favorite with all the crew, and when the cook saw who it was he denied himself the grouch he usually enjoyed when any one intruded into his castle, and hunted up some coffee, ham, doughnuts and cookies—the unvarying lumberjack handout—as though he enjoyed it.
Scott was absorbed in his own thoughts and let the cook do most of the talking, but as he was leaving a thought occurred to him. “By the way, Ben, if Dick should come back here for a handout any time, keep him here and send for me. I want to talk to him.”
He went out through the bunk house and motioned to Mac to follow him. When the foreman came out he led him over to a log a little way from the bunk house and sat down.
“Mac, I have seen and heard a couple of things to-day which have me pretty badly worried.”
Mac looked at him keenly in the dim starlight. “I’ll bet it’s got something to do with that guy who scared the team this morning.”