“But that is just what I was going to do myself,” Hopwood answered with disappointment. “You better let me do it. I know more about it than you do,” he pleaded.
“No, Hopwood,” Scott replied firmly, “this is my problem and I must settle it myself.”
“Why do you call it your problem when I have been working on it for years before you ever heard of it?” Hopwood remonstrated with some spirit.
Scott saw that line of argument would not work and changed his tactics. “But, Hopwood, I need you here. There is no use in my staying here if you go away. I can’t find anything about what is going on if you are not here to tell me. I could not tell whether Foster was getting ready to burn down the camps or murder us all. If you stay here while I am away and will keep MacAndrews posted, he can take care of things all right.”
Hopwood scratched his head doubtfully for a minute and frowned his disappointment.
“I am not the only one who depends on you, you know,” Scott urged. “All the people on the other mountain over there depend on you for the news.”
That was the deciding argument. Hopwood had told Jarred that he was going to put Foster out of the way and he wanted the glory of doing it, but he had been doing things for other people all his life and he knew that there was some truth in what Scott said.
“Very well,” he said quietly. “I suppose I’d better stay, but I do wish that I could go. Some day I am going to do something I want to.”
It seemed so pathetic to any one who knew the history of Hopwood’s life that Scott was almost tempted to let him go. But he was afraid that Hopwood might fail in the mission through his limited knowledge of the world.
“Then if you will take a message to Mac Andrews that I am going and for him to put the crew to work in the morning as usual, I am going to start right away,” Scott said resolutely. The sooner he accomplished his purpose the safer he would be.