"Maybe it's something international," suggested Barney.
"Yes," grinned Bruce, suddenly awaking from these wild speculations, "and maybe he's just some sort of bloomin' sport coming up here to take moving pictures of caribou herds, or to shoot white whale in Hudson Bay! Guess we better get back to work."
"Ye'll pardon an old man's foolish questions?"
Both boys turned at the words. An old man with bent shoulders, sunken chest and trembling hand stood beside them. There was an eager, questioning look in his kindly eyes, as he said in quaint Scotch accent:
"Ye'll noo be goin' to the woods a' soon?"
"I don't know," said Bruce, in a friendly tone. He was puzzled by the old man's question, having recognized him as a second cook for the steel-laying gang.
"Fer if ye be," continued the man, "ye's be keepin' a lookout fer Timmie noo, wouldn't ye though?"
"Who's Timmie?" asked Bruce.
"Timmie? Hae ye never hearn o' Timmie? Timmie; the boy it was, seventeen he was then. But 'twas twelve years ago it was, lad. He'd be a man noo. I sent him fer the bag wi' the pay-roll in it, an' he never coom back. It was the money thet done it, fer mind ye, I'm tellin' ye, he was jest a boy, seventeen. He went away to the woods wi' it, and then was shamed to coom back, I know. So if ye'll be goin' to the woods ye'll be watchin' noo, won't ye?"
"Was he your boy?"