“They learned I was working for you and followed me here. At first I wouldn’t listen to ’em, but they kept threatening if I didn’t play along, they’d tip off to you about my previous black market activities. Then I knew I’d lose my job.”
“So you made a deal with them?”
“They forced me into it. I never got much out of it myself.”
“How long has this stealing been going on, Dobbs?”
“Only since last fall. At first Freeze and Bauer didn’t take many pheasants. Lately, they’ve pressured me into letting them have more and more.”
“The pheasants were shipped out of town for sale, just as the Cubs thought?”
“I don’t know where they were sold,” Dobbs said. “Freeze and Bauer never told me any of the details of their business, and I didn’t ask. Mostly they drove in here at night, using the old logging road.”
“You let them know when the coast was clear, so to speak?”
“They made me do that. But believe me, Mr. Silverton, I never let ’em have as many pheasants as they wanted.”
“Very considerate of my interests,” the sportsman said sarcastically. “You knew about the log jam in the creek, of course.”