David's reply was a grunt; but he spent half the night in thinking it over. The harder he thought the more hopelessly confused he became.
During the drive to the Marsh farm next morning, Doctor Nash carefully avoided the subject of the marked cards and his suspicions. As there was not much else to talk of in Samson's Mill Settlement, just then, the drive was a quiet one. After helping his patient into the house the doctor drove away.
Jim Harley came over to see David in the afternoon. The sufferer received him with open suspicion, but Harley's manner soon drove the shadow away. He listened to the story of the accident with every sign of distress, and was impressed by the fact that Dick Goodine had helped load and launch the canoe. He knew that David and the trapper were not on friendly terms, and he believed the latter to be dangerously quick-tempered; but he could scarcely bring himself to believe that he would carry a grudge so far as to endanger a man's life.
"Have you and Dick had words about anything else?" he asked, "anything more than that argument about guiding sportsmen?"
"I guess he holds something else against me," admitted the guide.
"What is it? What have you ever done to him?" asked Harley.
David shifted about uneasily in his chair, and became very red in the face. In the depth of his heart he feared Jim Harley.
"I ain't done anything to him," he said falteringly. "I—I ain't said one uncivil word to him, except that time we had the tongue fight. He just don't like me, that's all. He don't like me because I'm a smarter guide than him, and get hold of all the rich sports; and—and I guess he thinks—well, he thinks——"
"What? What does he think?" demanded Harley.
"Well, you see, Jim, he—I guess he kinder thinks I've got the—the inside track, so to speak."