Each had brought a small canvas bag and so plentiful were the almost transparent lumps that in a little over an hour both bags were nearly filled.
“Best gumming I ever saw,” Jack declared from his perch well up near the top of the tree.
“And did you ever see such clear lumps?” Bob asked, as he shifted his position on a limb a bit lower. “It’s too bad we didn’t bring a couple more bags,” he added. “But we’ll fill our pockets. You don’t often get a chance like this.”
For another hour they kept at it and had about decided to call it quits, when Jack’s quick ears caught the sound of voices from below. He nudged Bob’s leg, which, at that moment, was hanging over a limb directly over his head, and as the latter turned, he put his finger to his lips.
As they listened the sound of voices came to them more plainly. Two men were talking beneath a tree a bit to the right of the one they were in, and it was evident that they were making no effort to moderate their tones, not dreaming that there was anyone in the vicinity. They were not long in recognizing the voice of Big Ben Donahue, but the other man was a stranger to them. They were not in the habit of eavesdropping but under the circumstances they felt justified in listening. They soon learned that the stranger was urging Big Ben to begin cutting on the disputed tract and to Bob’s surprise, from what he had overheard that night in the wayside hotel, the other was reluctant to take his advice.
“I know I told ’im that no one would dare to serve that injunction on me, but that’s not the point. Suppose I go ahead and cut a lot of lumber off of that tract and then that deed turns up?”
“Thunder an’ spikes! I thought you had the deed,” they heard the other reply.
“Well, I ain’t. I found it in the booth in the bank just after Golden had been in there and I put it in my pocket, but there was a hole in it and when I came to look for it, it wasn’t there. It must a dropped out and someone picked it up, so you see how it is. I don’t know where it is and it may turn up any time and then I’d be in a pretty pickle.”
“You sure had a nerve to go ahead and get that fake deed fixed up and all the rest when you didn’t have the deed,” the stranger declared in a tone of disgust.
“Confound it, man, I didn’t miss the deed till after I’d done all that. Thought it was in my pocket all the time. Oh, I know it’s carelessness about such things that’s kept me from being a rich man, but I can’t seem to help it,” and the man’s voice took on a sad note strange to its owner.