"Hullo!" he heard Ulmer Balasco call out. "I wasn't looking for you to-day, Hildan!" And then the man shook hands with the lumber dealer and stepped into the office.
"Foxy Hildan!" thought Dale, and then he remembered how he had heard the man's name before. "He had some dealings with Mr. Wilbur in Detroit, and with that thin man at the lumber office there. This is getting interesting."
From the window of the tool house he could see the two men in the office, and also see the book-keeper working away over the books.
Ulmer Balasco and Foxy Hildan were talking very earnestly, but presently he saw Balasco hold up his hand as a warning, and jerk his thumb toward the book-keeper. Then the two men came out of the building and walked along a path running behind the tool house.
Dale hardly knew what to do, and before he realized it the two men were within a dozen feet of where he was standing, behind several boxes and casks. The men had halted, and were talking as earnestly as ever.
"Now don't you worry at all," he heard Foxy Hildan say. "I've got Wilbur fixed, and he won't come anywhere near you. He thinks everything is going along as smoothly as possible."
"But when the blow falls——" began Ulmer Balasco.
"We'll stand from under, and he'll be the only man to get hit." Foxy Hildan laughed coldly. "Why, Balasco, don't you know that this means at least ten thousand dollars to us?"
"I know that."
"And when the company goes to smash, you and I can buy it in on the quiet, for what that railroad contract brings. It's a dead-easy, open-and-shut proposition."