"Did you say anything about a guarantee?"
"No, sir. I didn't know you wanted it."
"Well, write to him and tell him what I said. If he doesn't want to toe the mark we can get along without him. He may be foxy, but he can't play his little game on me. He stuck the Everett people about three thousand dollars, so Panglass said, and he always tells the truth."
"Couldn't they get the money at all?" asked the clerk.
"Not a dollar. You see, Hildan pretended to act only as an agent, and in some way they couldn't hold him for it. Oh, he's as slick as grease. If he wants my shingles he has got to pay cash or give me a cast-iron guarantee," concluded Philip Rice.
Owen could not help but hear this conversation, and it interested him greatly. He had learned that Foxy Hildan had visited Ulmer Balasco two days before, and further, according to Mr. Rice and to a man named Panglass, Hildan was not to be trusted in any business transaction, and had already swindled some Everett timber or shingle dealers out of three thousand dollars.
"I'll have to send Mr. Wilbur a letter as soon as I get back," he thought. "We can now give him about all the information he asked for, and the sooner he gets it the better I suppose it will be for him."
"Now I'll show you through," said Philip Rice, and led the way from the office to the first of the big machines. This was a large band saw, of improved pattern, and Owen was immediately interested in seeing this machine cut into a log several feet in diameter and saw it from end to end with scarcely an effort.
"We'd have little use in Maine for such a saw as that," he said. "It's the heavy wood-working machinery out here that counts."
From the band saw they passed to a planing machine, and then to several used for turning out moldings, and to a dozen or more lathes. At one machine spokes for wagon wheels were dropping forth at the rate of several a minute, and at another he saw hammer handles made by the score. Then he came to the shingle machines, and was shown that which the proprietor of the place thought so good. It certainly was a beautiful machine, and the way it turned out the shingles was a sight to witness.