“Was you tellin’ me where Lane has been makin’ his headquarters since he skipped the fire station?” he inquired, innocently.
“I was thinkin’ about him, too,” returned Withee, promptly. “Headquarters! Does an Injun devil with a steel trap on his tail have headquarters while he’s runnin’ and yowlin’? Whether he’s been in the air or in a hole since he went out of his head, time of the fire, I don’t know. Eye ain’t been laid on him till he come out of that snow-squall, walkin’ like an icicle and hootin’ like a barn owl.”
“Heard of any goods bein’ missed from any depot camps?” pursued the woodsman, shrewdly. “That might tell where he’s been hangin’ out.”
“No,” said the operator, suddenly brusque. Then he looked up from the sliver that he had been whittling absent-mindedly, and fixed keen eye on Straight. “Say, look here, Chris, if you and your young friend are over here huntin’ for Lane, or for any documents or papers or evidence to make more trouble for Honorable John Barrett, I’ve got to tell you that you can’t ring me in. Honorable Barrett and me has fixed!”
“I reckoned you would,” said Christopher. “Stumpage kings usually get their own way.”
“Well, it’s different in this case,” declared the operator, triumphantly, “and when I’ve been used square I cal’late to use the other fellow square, and that’s why I’m tellin’ you, so that you won’t make any mistakes about how I feel towards Mr. Barrett. I don’t approve of any move to hector him about that Lane matter. He says to me at Castonia—”
“When?”
“No longer ago than yesterday. I came through from down-river with two new teamsters and a saw-filer, and hearin’ Mr. Barrett was able to set up and talk a little business for the first time, I stepped into Rod Ide’s house, and we fixed. He throwed off all claims for extry stumpage and damages on Square-hole. And when a man gives me more than I expect, that fixes me with him.”
“Ought to, for sartin,” agreed Christopher. “Change of heart in him, or because you knowed about the Lane case?” The tone was rather satirical, and Withee flushed under his tan.
“You don’t think I went to a sick man’s bedside and blackmailed him, do you, like some—”