“I ain’t starving,” he laughed. “I’ve got some little saved. Besides, when you find the Catch Me, she’ll be worth at least a couple of hundred dollars to you.”
“That’s so; but I imagine finding her will be a bigger job than I thought it would be. I am satisfied that some one has towed her off, and has got her in hiding.”
There was quite a bit of grinding to do at the mill, and after a dinner of which I hardly ate a mouthful, I started in to help Ford do the work.
It was the best possible thing I could undertake; for it diverted my mind, and that eased my heart, which felt at times like a big lump of lead in my breast.
As I tended to the hoppers and helped fill the bags I began to speculate upon what kind of a man my uncle would prove to be. The tone of his letter, as I read it over again, did not exactly satisfy me. What did he mean by stating that he intended to take charge of affairs?
At five o’clock I heard the sound of a horn coming from the main road that ran from Harborport through the Bend to Kannassee, ten miles distant.
“There’s the horn of the stage-coach,” said Ford. “Bart Pollock must want to see you.”
“Perhaps he’s after some feed,” I replied. “I’ll go down and see.”
Brushing the flour from my face and hands, I left the mill on a run. The main road was fifteen rods away through the bushes. There was a rough path but little used, and this I followed.
When I arrived I found the stage-coach standing in the middle of the road, with Bart Pollock, the driver, sitting contentedly on the front seat along with a tall stranger.