“Would you really do that? But it’s too much to ask you. Why couldn’t Tom go?”
“Tom’s going would give the whole thing away. Besides, I’m afraid it needs some one with more than Tom’s experience of crooked business to probe this. No, I’ll go myself. You needn’t be grateful. Remember, this is my quarrel, too.”
“But I’m more than grateful,” she exclaimed. “But I don’t think you need go to Pascagoula. The office of the oil company is in Mobile—Maury Building, Royal Street, Room 24. I remember the address.”
Lockwood made a note of it.
“The real struggle will come when I try to expose Hanna,” he warned her. “He’ll fight. See if you can’t prepare your father’s mind a little; possibly hint at Hanna’s behavior in New Orleans.”
“I’ll do all I can—and wait for you to come back!” she promised. Her eyes met his, full of gratitude and confidence. In Lockwood’s heart there was a sudden uprush of something vital and sweet, that washed away almost the last of the old black bitterness. He held her hand somewhat tightly as he took his leave, and suppressed a great many words that came into his mouth. For the present they were allies—no more.
CHAPTER XIII
OPEN WAR
Lockwood got three days’ leave of absence from Craig with some difficulty, and only by alleging business in Mobile of the utmost importance. The camp was busy; Craig did not want to let him go, and was much afraid that he would not come back. He valued his new woods rider; and he had remarked to the camp foreman that Lockwood was naturally cut out for a turpentine man, and he was going to hold on to him.
By good luck the camp motor car was going over to Bay Minette, and Lockwood went there in it. The afternoon train was crowded, full of well-dressed people and the stir of life from which it seemed to him that he had been long exiled. He reached Mobile late in the day; the sunshine lay low on the palms of Government Street as he walked up from the Louisville & Nashville depot, and he knew that it was too late to make any investigations that day.
He lodged himself at the St. Andrew Hotel, and he sat that evening and smoked under the live oaks of Bienville Square, where the fountain splashed and gurgled. Only four blocks away stood the Maury Building, where the office of the “oil company” was said to be. In the morning he would find out if there was any oil company there, and, if not, the secretary of the board of trade would probably tell him all he wished to know.