“Who saw the shed first?”
“I did, sir,” said one of the fencers. “I turned out at daylight to get some wood, when the fust thing I saw was the roof all blazin’ and part of it fell in. I raised a shout and started all the men. We tried buckets, but, lor’ bless you, when we come to look, the floor was all burned through and through.”
“Then you think it had been burning a good while?” asked Jack, now beginning to understand the drift of the examination.
“Hours and hours, sir,” answered the man; “from what we see, the fire started under where the floor joins the battens; there was a lot of shavings under the battens, and some of them hadn’t caught when we came. It was there the fire began sure enough.”
“Did any one see the strange men leave?” asked M‘Nab, with assumed coolness, though his lip worked nervously, and his forehead was drawn into deep wrinkles.
“Not a soul,” said another of the hands. “I looked over at their camp as we rushed out, and it was all cleared out, and no signs of ’em.”
John Redgrave and his manager rode back very sadly to Steamboat Point that quiet Sunday morn. The day was fair and still, with the added silence and hush which long training communicates to the mere idea of the Sabbath day.
The birds called strangely, but not unmusically, from the pale-hued trees but lately touched with a softer green. The blue sky was cloudless. Nature was kindly and serene. Nothing was incongruous with her tranquil and tender aspect but the stern, tameless heart of man.
They maintained for some time a dogged silence. The loss was bitter. Not only had rather more money been spent upon the building than was quite advisable or convenient, but the whole comfort, pride, and perhaps profit, of the shearing would be lost.
“Those infernal scoundrels,” groaned M‘Nab; “that snake of a Frenchman, with his beady black eyes. I thought the little brute meant mischief, though I never dreamed of this, or I’d have gone and slept in the shed till shearing was over. I’ll have them in gaol before a week’s over their heads, but what satisfaction is there in that? It’s my own fault in great part. I ought to have known better, and not have been so hard on them.”