"Nothing," he said finally.
The Swede mounted his horse. As he was about to ride off Angus detained him.
"Send me over my horse," he said casually. "After that you best get around and see they're setting those 'smudge' fires right. We're going to get a chill to-night. We must do what we can to keep the frost out of the crops."
The man rode off, and Angus turned back into his office.
The manager's mood had entirely changed for the better. A sense of elation had replaced the desperate irritation of a few moments before. Was something going to happen at last? It almost looked like it. Frank Smith had registered at Everton, and here was a letter from Hendrie. A letter. It was not Hendrie's way to write letters with the telegraph handy, and the telephone to his hand. He sat down and tore the envelope open.
It contained eight closely written sheets of very thin paper, and Angus smiled as he realized the writer's purpose. The envelope had appeared quite thin. There had been nothing about it to attract attention from the curious.
Straightening out the sheets he settled himself to the perusal of his chief's letter. It was very long, and full of carefully detailed instructions. Furthermore, it was dated at Gleber, and it also informed him of Frank Smith's arrival in Everton! But these things were only a tithe of what the letter told him. It told him so much that his whole interest was fully engrossed, and a curious wonder at the man who had written it stirred within him. With his first reading of the letter a wild hope leaped within him, and, by the time he had finished his second reading, he realized that he need have no further fears of being banished from Deep Willows.
The "something" he had longed for had happened. The scheming mind of Alexander Hendrie had revealed itself to him. After all, fortune was with him, and it was only necessary for him to carry out the instructions set out in the letter for everything to be as he wished.
But there was no time to indulge in the pleasurable reaction inspired by his letter. His orders were imperative and demanded prompt attention. Therefore he refolded the pages and bestowed them safely. Then, when his horse arrived, he set out at once in the direction of Everton.
Angus Moraine's fears of a summer frost looked like being realized. The night closed down brilliantly fine, with a threatening chill pervading the air. There was no wind, and this was significant. To the weatherwise the sudden dropping of the thermometer was possible at any moment, and the farming world might easily awaken on the morrow to find the harvest prospects destroyed, and the highest grade wheat reduced to something little better than fodder for hogs.