“You don’t mean it. Please tell us about it. I’m sure that Tom would never stand for anything of that sort.”
“Well, ’twas like this. Early this morning one of my Frenchmen started for the spring for a jug of water and when he was about half way there some guy shot at him and busted the jug.”
“Is it possible? Who do you suppose would have done such a thing?” and Bob succeeded in bringing to his face a well simulated expression of horror.
“I dunno, but I followed two sets of snow-shoe tracks from just this side of my camp to here. They were the only tracks I could find and it looks mighty suspicious. What do you think? Of course,” he hastened to add, “I don’t care nothin’ about the jug, but it scared the fellow so that he’s plumb afraid to stir out o’ the mess house and he’s talked so much about it that a lot of the rest of ’em have got the fidgets.”
“Just a minute, Mr. Donahue,” Bob interrupted. “You say the man was going for water? I didn’t know there was a spring this side of your camp. I thought you got your drinking water on the other side of your camp.”
Big Ben shifted a bit uneasily in his chair. He realized that he had made a slight mistake and hastened to correct it.
“So we do, but that’s what the fellow said he was after. Perhaps he had found another spring up this way somewhere, I dunno. Anyhow, that don’t make no difference, he was on my land.”
“I believe there’s some question in regard to that,” Bob declared hastily. “If I’m not mistaken Father’s line runs pretty close to your camp.”
“Not so you’d notice it it don’t,” and the big man got to his feet and the boys saw that the good-natured look on his face had changed to one of anger. “That tract belongs to me,” he roared, “an’ I’ve got the papers to prove it.”
“Just a minute, Mr. Donahue,” Bob said in a perfectly calm voice. “There is no need to get excited about it. That is a question for the court to decide. But now that you have introduced the subject, I’m going to say a few things. Please sit down.”