They had all escaped from it. They seemed to believe themselves everlastingly rich. They were flinging away money with both hands. And now entered Hanna—a mystery which Lockwood was not yet able to penetrate.
He was not winning the boys’ money at poker; he was not inducing them to cash checks for him, nor borrowing money, so far as Lockwood had gathered. What was he getting out of it?
Lockwood reflected that he would like to know through whose hands went these orders for motors, wines, and jewelry, through what medium they were filled. From what Jackson had said about the car, he was pretty sure that he already knew.
But definite discoveries were slow in coming, though he rode over to the big house several times in the next ten days. Twice he found Louise alone on the gallery and had half an hour’s talk with her, but she did not recur to her confidences of the night of the poker party.
Once he found no one there but Hanna, and he spent a difficult twenty minutes before he felt that he could leave. Lockwood had firm faith now in his disguise; he felt sure that Hanna had not recognized him and could not; but there was an instinctive antipathy between the two men, though they talked politely about the weather, the land, and the river. He soon excused himself and escaped.
His time was much taken up at the camp. A great accumulation of rosin and spirit had been collected, to be shipped up the river to Montgomery, and Lockwood went down to see it loaded on the boat. The boat was at the landing when he arrived, discharging cargo, and there was as usual a good deal of freight for the Powers. Tom was there watching it carried ashore, and he had his car and a mule wagon to transport it home.
Lockwood saw the crates and boxes, and on his next visit to the house the family exhibited the contents to him with a great deal of pride. There were two immense leather library chairs, a mahogany table, a hanging lamp, and a case of table silver. There was a gift for Louise, a pearl necklace, which she brought downstairs to show. Tom mentioned what he had paid for it, and the price did not seem exorbitant, if the pearls were as real as they looked.
He also had received a quantity of motor-car literature by post, and he mentioned that he was thinking of buying a small, light car, better for the sandy roads than the big one. Lockwood perhaps looked a trifle startled.
“I reckon you think we-all is shore goin’ the pace,” said Tom, a little defiantly.
“It’s all right to go the pace if you can stand the speed,” Lockwood returned.