There was no mistaking the tannery; the smell would have guided one there, even if the mountains of hemlock bark piled all about had not. Ramsay entered the long, low, shed-like building, and a man working at a steaming vat looked up curiously. Ramsay approached him with "Who's the boss man around here?"
"I am," an unseen man said.
Ramsay whirled to look at the man who had spoken, and he came face to face with Devil Chad.
CHAPTER THREE
ON THE BEACH
Ramsay felt an instant tension and a bristling anger, and he knew now that he should have connected two incidents. The man who had written to him and offered him a job in the Three Points tannery had signed his name 'Devlin Chadbourne.' Devlin Chadbourne—Devil Chad—and Ramsay took a backward step. Never before had he met a man so capable of arousing in him a cordial dislike that was almost an urge to start fighting immediately.
"Where's the Holter?" Devil Chad demanded.
"I sent her back to Milwaukee after Captain Schultz let me off here," Ramsay said sarcastically.
"Don't get smart with me, boy." Devil Chad glowered. "You was on the Holter when she sailed."