Dick saddled one of the horses, and rode off at a gallop. He was lucky to find the doctor at home in the farmhouse where he boarded. He delivered his message briefly, but clearly. Nash rubbed his hands together, and informed the trapper that there was another doctor at Bird Portage, twenty miles away. When asked to explain this remark, he blustered and swore, and at last said frankly that Rayton could bleed to death for all he cared.
"If you don't come peaceful an' quiet," said Goodine slowly, "then—by hell!—you'll come the other way!"
Their eyes met, and flared for a second or two. Then Nash wavered.
"I'll come," he said.
"I'll wait for you," said the trapper. "Git a move on."
When they reached Rayton's house they found old Captain Wigmore in the sitting room, smoking a cigar and smiling sardonically. Nash went upstairs, but Wigmore beckoned the trapper to him.
"I've wormed it out of them," he said. "I know all about it; and that means that I know a good deal more about it than you do."
"What? More about what?" asked Goodine anxiously.
"Just this, my good trapper of foolish beasts! Nash is the man who put the hole through the Englishman's shoulder!"
Dick stared. At last he regained the use of his tongue.