He placed his ear against the log wall and listened. The gnawing of a mouse on the other side sounded to him like some one tearing off the roof, and would have drowned out any other noises there might have been. The mouse stopped and he held his breath to hear better. There was not a sound. Minute after minute passed and still no sound. The mouse began again.
“Better be shot than have that mouse scare me to death,” Scott muttered to himself, and he determined to have a look in the door. First he went back to make sure that there was no door in the rear. There was only a little square window on that side. Slowly he came back to his corner and listened once more. All was still.
With a glance at the tunnel he crawled cautiously toward the door. Inch by inch he made his slow advance with his eyes glued on the opening and his mind made up to jump on any one who might come out—for there was no chance to escape now.
At the very edge of the door he stopped to listen and peeped cautiously around the doorframe. Just then a noise behind him brought him to his feet with a bound, and he saw a man step out of the tunnel.
CHAPTER XXII
HOPWOOD GETS JARRED’S PROMISE
In the meanwhile MacAndrews had carried out his distasteful duty of rounding up the crew in the bunk house. Most of them were too far gone to offer much resistance and went to bed without protest. He left Ben and the bull cook to keep guard and see that no one escaped and no outsiders came in. Then he went up in the woods to see if he could catch any one looking for the men up there.
He made his way to the top of one of the skid roads where he had found a group of the swampers and road monkeys. If any attempt were made to bring the men more whisky it would probably be there where the largest group had been. He selected a well sheltered spot in the edge of the brush and sat down on a log to wait.
He did not have long to wait. Hardly five minutes had passed when the bushes on the opposite side of the road were parted cautiously and a boy’s face peeped out. It was Foster Wait’s son. Not seeing any one, he came slowly out into the skid road and began peering about. He was evidently disappointed and very nervous. It was like Foster to send his son where he was afraid to go himself.
Mac could not wait any longer. He was curious to see what the boy would do but his desire to get his hands on him was too strong for him. He tore from his hiding place and made a dive at the boy. But he was no match for the badly scared boy. He eluded Mac’s grasp and sprang into the brush like a rabbit. Mac tried to follow him, but he might as well have tried to follow a weasel in a haystack. He soon gave it up and came back to see if the boy had left anything behind him. As he expected he found a large stone jug in the brush where the boy had first appeared.
With a grunt of satisfaction Mac dumped the contents on the ground. “Enough there to paralyze the whole crew for a week,” he mumbled. He raised the big jug over his head and was about to smash it on a rock, but his Scotch thrift stayed his arm and he took the jug back to camp.