“A bigger man than the boss?”
Oh, yes; for he sent the boss money to pay them and owned the trees, while the boss wasn’t as big a man as Louis Blanchet, the notary, whom he, the lad, had often seen and talked with, and once had thrown mud at when he was drunk.
No, he didn’t know the big man’s name; he had said that before, but anybody could tell them; anybody who knew, for he owned the trees; and the “boss” could tell them; his name was Kennett, Georges Kennett; not the boss here, for his name was Jean Busque, he was Canadian; but the other boss, the one who told Pierre and Victor to go to the Forks of the River.
But he must go back, because the boss, the one here, would be angry and make him lose some of his money. He had heard them say something about Victor being killed, and he wanted to ask them and tell them it couldn’t be Victor, because he had gone to the big lake, as Pierre had said. What would Victor’s wife do if he was dead? The good God—le bon Dieu—and the good Saint Anne—la bonne sainte Anne—wouldn’t let him be dead, when there was Victor’s wife and three little ones and another coming in the summer, as Victor had told him. They must know that Victor couldn’t be dead, and if they saw him, they were to tell him that he—Étienne Vignon—had said this and would meet him at the big Falls to go back to la Beauce before the feast of Saint John, as Victor had promised Étienne’s mother when he took him away to go on the drive. And with these words, the lad dashed into the woods for his mile run back to camp.
Trafford caught himself perilously near a sigh, as the lad disappeared among the trees.
“It’s as plain as the nose on your face—that part of it,” he said. “Hunter sent for these men; had them go to the forks to join a pretended gang, and word was left there for ’em to go on to the hut back of the Madison Beeches.”
“Hunter?” his companion asked.
“Certainly. Isn’t he the man who owns the trees to such a simple lad as that? He don’t know the name—but we do, Charles Hunter of Millbank.”
“Then he’s concerned in the murder?”
“If you knew the things that aren’t to be seen as well as you do the things that you see, you’d beat us all,” Trafford answered. “If he was in the murder, he’d know where those papers are and wouldn’t have needed these men. His very desperation to get them shows he isn’t the murderer.”