They found them floating close together, down near the point, and McCorquodale undertook to swim out and bring them in. It was a tribute to him that he was permitted without demur to have such a golden opportunity of escaping and a tribute to Kendrick's judgment that he took no advantage of it.
He had pitched his small tent back from the lake about a quarter of a mile in a gully, where it was hidden completely by thick undergrowth. A spring bubbled not far away and the music of the tiny creek that trickled from it through a bed of water-cress provided a pleasing lullaby. His visitor nodded approval of the snug arrangements. Apparently McCorquodale was an old hand at this sort of thing.
"Seem to have prepared for quite a stay," remarked Phil, turning from inspection of the "kitchen," which had been built into the embankment and which, with its sheet-iron stove-top and all, afforded culinary facilities of a practical kind. "I suppose you have your refrigerator sunk beside the spring, eh?"
"Got a tin box there—yep," confirmed McCorquodale as he fed the fire he had started in front of the tent. "I've been here goin' on two weeks an' I figger to make m'self comfortable when I goes fishin'."
"Fish much at night?" inquired Kendrick suspiciously.
"Yep. Night's best time to catch my kind o' fish," grinned his host. "You come on over here to the fire an' get dried an' if y'll promise to keep it to y'rself, I'll put you wise."
So while Kendrick sat on the opposite side of the fire McCorquodale volunteered the information that he was a detective—in short, that he was attached to the Special Service Department of the Canadian Lake Shores Railway.
"You'll be interested in that, then," said Phil as he selected an envelope from the papers which he had spread out to dry by the fire.
"Sort o' related, you an' me,—by employment," grinned McCorquodale as he passed back the credentials. "I knowed already you was Wade's new secretary. Got a letter from the Chief himself 's mornin', so advisin'. Fine man to work for, Wade is. He never overlooks nothin' an' I guess he figgered you'n me might meet up here, seein's it's my special job just now to watch your aunt's cottage."
Since Kendrick had seen him last the "Iron Man" had grown a little moustache, a weird affair of reddish bristles which a scar on his lip compelled to lean mostly in one direction with a windswept appearance. It looked like an old toothbrush which has had desperate adventures in an overpacked travelling bag. This hirsute anomaly Mr. McCorquodale now stroked complacently, enjoying the effect of his surprising speech.