“Yes,” said Ned. “I know whom you mean.”
“I didn’t understand it, and I don’t like it,” said Walter, the troubled look growing deeper, “but there is never a time I look toward him that I don’t find his eyes upon me.”
“Humph!” said Ned. And then: “Well, Walt, he’s not changed his ways any. Don’t look around just yet, or he’ll see that we’ve been speaking of him. He’s over by the cabin door behind you, and he’s looking this way for all he’s worth.”
“Alone?” asked Walter.
“No. That fellow Barker is with him.”
“Barker’s like his shadow,” said Walter. “You never see one without the other.”
Colonel Huntley was a man of perhaps forty years, tall and powerfully built. He wore a long frock coat of gray cloth, doe-skin trousers, and long shining boots. Upon his head was a bell-crowned beaver hat with a curling brim. In the immaculately white stock about his neck was a large diamond set in rough gold.
The person beside him was a young fellow of perhaps twenty, with huge, thick shoulders and a round bullet head.
“Tell me,” said Ned, his eyes upon the two but his mind, apparently, upon a subject altogether foreign to them, “do you think Colonel Huntley has anything to do with Davidge?”
“I feel sure of it,” replied Walter. “When either of us is about, Sam keeps hidden. But when the coast’s clear, or they think it is, he is to be seen in out-of-the-way corners, earnestly discussing something with Colonel Huntley.”