“What do you know about it, Patsy?” put in Chick. “I see a big mob of people going up the road—men and women—and they look ugly.”
“They are ugly. See that big fellow at the head of the procession in a blue sweater? Know who he is?”
Chick peered harder at the disorderly gathering making its way up the winding road toward the gates of the Milmarsh estate. But the big man had gone too far for sure recognition.
“Looks as if it might be Bonesy Billings!” said Chick. “It’s about his build, and I know he has bought property in the Paradise City place.”
“You’ve hit it, Chick,” nodded Patsy. “It is Bonesy, and he’s hotter’n the inside of a coke oven. He’s got on to the fact that this isn’t any more than a swamp, and he’s come up here to have it out with the guys that sold him the plot.”
“How about the manager and his men at the office in New York, Patsy?” asked Nick.
“The office is busted up and the men are gone. I’m told they only hired the furniture there, so they didn’t have to move it. They paid up everything in the way of rent and for the furniture two days ago, and beat it for—for—Paradise, I guess,” laughed Patsy.
“They paid up everything, you say?”
“Everything about the office. You can bet they were slick enough to do that. They didn’t want to have any more publicity than they could help. If they’d tried to beat the office rent or the furniture hire, they’d have been followed up here to Milmarsh, and that would have meant a fuss for the other guys who are living high in that big house on the hill.”
“You mean the Milmarsh residence?” asked Captain Brown.