CHAPTER XVII
THE AFFAIR AT DURFY’S CAMP
“The boss was a-thinkin’ to swat him, but allowed he had better not,
For ’twas trouble bad that Dumphy had, whatever it was he’d got.”
When the timber barons came in sight of the camp at noon, Tommy Eye, returned emissary, was seated on the edge of the wangan platform with attitude and countenance of alarmed expectancy. By his side was old Christopher Straight, the guide who had accompanied Dwight Wade from Castonia settlement.
“I done it—I said as you said for me to say,” Tommy began, eagerly, “and Mr. Straight here will tell you the same. I said it first to old Noah up there, and he was startin’ off with his animiles like as they done with the ark stranded, and he swore me up hill and down, and—”
“Shut up!” barked the Honorable Pulaski, in a perfectly fiendish temper after the sights of that forenoon. “Did you bring that girl? And if you didn’t, why not?”
“I can tell you better, perhaps, Mr. Britt,” broke in old Christopher, calmly. “She has been left on Mr. Wade’s hands, and Mr. Wade feels that he ought to be careful. Warden Lane, who had charge of her, seems to have lost his wits. All last night—it was an awful night, gentlemen, on Jerusalem—he was out on the ledges raving and howling. I think that a matter that Mr. Barrett will understand was troubling up his conscience, if that’s the word for it. This mornin’ he seemed to be clean out of his head. He knocked the saplin’s off his cages and let out the animals, and they followed him off down into the woods—”