The two were washing the dishes, when the kitchen door opened, and Dick Goodine stepped into the room.
"We're in for another spell o' soft weather," he said. "It's mild as milk this mornin'. This little lick o' snow'll be all gone by noon. It don't look as if I'll ever get into the woods with my traps."
He sat down, filled and lit his pipe, and put his feet on the hearth of the cookstove.
"That was an all-fired queer thing about old Wigmore," he said. "All the fools ain't dead yet, I reckon. Since the captain got that there card, the thing don't look as serious to me as it did. Not by a long shot! What d'you say, Mr. Banks?"
"You are right, Dick, according to your lights," replied the New Yorker.
The trapper looked puzzled.
"He means that you don't know all the particulars of what happened last night," said Rayton. "Captain Wigmore got the marked card, right enough, after supper—but I got it twice, before supper. That is the puzzling part of it, Dick."
The care-free smile fled from Goodine's handsome and honest countenance. His dark cheeks paled, and a shadow, starting far down, came up to the surface of his eyes.
"You!" he exclaimed. "Twice—before supper! That—that looks bad to me. That's the worst yet."
"My dear chap, if the silly thing was dealt to me every night, and chucked into my bedroom window every morning, it wouldn't be a jot less silly," replied Rayton. "Some idiot, who has heard Jim Harley's story, is trying to have some fun out of it. That is all. It amuses him evidently, and doesn't hurt us."