“Thank you again,” said Vane.
“Nor like a fool,” went on the native in a puzzled tone. “But you must be one or t’other—or both.”
“But I don’t know why you should think so,” protested Vane.
“You ask Jard Hassock. Maybe he will tell you. I would, only I’m kinder side-steppin’ trouble with them Danglers these days. A man figgerin’ on fixin’ up with a wife come spring can’t be too careful.”
Vane returned to Moosehead House, entered the kitchen window and gained his room and his bed without detection. In spite of the hour, sleep did not come to him immediately.
He was excited and puzzled. The fact of the sentries on the road in to Goose Creek puzzled and excited him, and so did the talk and behavior of Pete Sledge. Why the sentries? Why the signals? Surely a man could breed a few horses without such precautions as these. And what would have happened to him if the Danglers had caught him? And what was Pete Sledge’s game—if any? The fellow talked about marriage to a woman who was already married, and about having killed a man who was still alive and hearty within a few miles of him, and made a point of begging matches and tucking them away like precious things—but was he as crazy as these things suggested? He doubted it.
CHAPTER VI
THE WARNING
Vane slept until Jard Hassock awoke him by pulling his toes. It was then close upon nine o’clock of a fine morning.