"What do you want of me, Davy Marsh?" demanded the trapper. "If you think I cut your canoe pole, yer a fool, and if you say so, yer a liar!"
"And what is all this about your camp?" asked Rayton, wrenching the club from David's hand. "Keep cool, and tell us about it."
"By——!" cried the guide, "I'd knock the stuffin' out of the two o' ye if I had the use o' my arm! You call me a liar, Dick Goodine? That's easy—now—with my right arm in splints. And as you are so damn smart, Rayton, can you tell me who burnt down my camp? And can you tell me who cut that pole? There's a piece of it standin' in the corner—proof enough to send a man to jail on!"
"This is the first I have heard of the camp," replied Rayton, "and I am very sorry to hear of it now. When did it happen?"
"Happen?" cried Marsh bitterly. "It happened this very day. Peter Griggs was out that way with a load of grub for one o' Harley's camps, this very afternoon, and it was just burnin' good when he come to it. Hadn't bin set more'n an hour, he cal'lated, but it was too far gone for him to stop it. So he unhitched one of his horses and rode in to tell me, hopin' I'd be able to catch the damn skunk who done it. And here he is, by hell!"
"You are wrong there, Marsh," said Mr. Banks. "Goodine has been with us since early yesterday morning, way over in the Long Barrens country—and we didn't get home till this afternoon."
"We made camp near the Barrens last night," said Rayton.
"Is that the truth?" asked Marsh. "Cross your heart! So help you God!"
"It is the truth," said Rayton.
"Damn your cheek, Marsh, of course it is the truth," roared Banks.