"Sure, and I'll leave that for the ladies!" exclaimed Paddy with a twinkle in his eyes.
"Now everybody keep quiet and listen," said Grace, when she had related how she and her chums had come to the winter camp, and how Mr. Jallow and his company had encroached on land that Mr. Ford believed was his own.
"And it is his!" exclaimed Paddy. "The boundary lines have been changed. I can see that myself. It's that Jallow's work. Listen and I'll tell you how it happened.
"As your father says, Miss," he went on, turning to Grace, "I was with him when the survey was made, and stone piles put up and the trees blazed to mark the line. That valuable strip was on his side. Then some time passed, and that cunning fox, Jallow, came to me, and he represented that he had been wrongly dealt with. He said Mr. Ford had sold out his interests to strangers who were going to do harm to Jallow and his friends.
"Not knowing any different, I believed him. He said the courts would not give him justice and he was going to take it himself, and I had small blame for him for doing that. I'd do the same. But mind you," Paddy insisted, "I did not know I was doing my friend James Ford any harm.
"Jallow said he would pay me just to disappear for a time, and, foolishly, I consented. I went out of the country, and for a while Jallow sent me, and a friend of mine, money. My friend knew the proper boundaries, too.
"Then the money stopped, and I came on to find out why. Jallow only laughed at me, and said he had no further use for me, as he'd got all he wanted. I didn't know what to do. I stayed around here, keeping in hiding, for I feared maybe I could be arrested for what I did. That was why I didn't give you my name," and he smiled at the girls.
"So I came to this old cabin I used to own, to see what would turn up. Sure and it was myself turned up—slipped up—and broke my leg. That was what turned up.
"But before that I had seen all I wanted to—that was the changed boundary lines. Then I knew Jallow's game. He wanted to throw that valuable timber strip into his own land. I made some inquiries, and found that Mr. Ford still owned the lumber camp, and hadn't sold out, as Jallow told me. Then I knew I had been fooled, but still I didn't know what to do, for I was afraid of arrest, and I never could stand jail, when I knew I hadn't really meant any wrong.
"I saw Jallow again, but he only laughed at me, and give me a little money to get out of the country. But I didn't go then, and I'm not going now. I'm going to see justice done!"