“Not so fast, Dan!” cried Mr. Watt. “That ain’t any way to do business. Say, are you crazy? Let’s see them skins again, and maybe I’ll go as high as thirty-five. And gimme a look at the rest o’ the lot.”
“I been reading in the papers what furs are worth this year,” replied the youth. “You can’t fool me. I ain’t Jim Conley. So long.”
Anger and something of apprehension flamed in Luke Watt’s unpleasant eyes and big face. With a muttered oath he started for the door in the counter—but before he reached it, Young Dan had closed the door of the store at his heels. And by the time the big man had reached that door, after squeezing his way through the clutter of barrels and crates, Young Dan was half-way down the village street.
Young Dan kept on going along the well-beaten river road, with his snowshoes on his back instead of his feet, for half an hour. He paused now and again to glance over his shoulder, for he believed that Luke Watt would soon be on his tracks with a horse and pung. And in that he was right. Looking back from the top of one rise he saw a fast-trotting horse come over another rise half a mile behind. Then he turned to the right, into a logging road, and ran at top speed for a couple of hundred yards. The logging road was crooked, and rough underfoot. After the sprint, Young Dan strapped his snowshoes on and hopped into the woods. He glanced up at the sun, then went forward on a straight course at a fine pace. He felt very well satisfied with his morning’s work. He had confirmed his suspicions of Mr. Luke Watt, at least.
“I have the goods on both of them,” he said. “I worked it out just right. Now I guess they’ll both have to behave themselves or clear right out of this country. I’ve got enough on Conley to scare him into being good and looking after his wife and kids, that’s certain.”
He halted for long enough to eat two sandwiches of cold bread and colder bacon, standing. Then, steering by the sun, he continued to break straight through the woods toward the little town of Harlow.
Luke Watt, in his little red pung behind his leggy trotter, drove straight on down the well-beaten river road, intent on reaching the upper edge of Harlow ahead of Young Dan. If the trapper held to the road and was overtaken on the way, all the better for the storekeeper, of course—but the great thing was a meeting this side of Harlow. It was not the fear of losing trade that inspired Mr. Watt to this determination and this unusual speed. He would regret a loss of trade, sure enough; but what he actually feared was the Law. He suspected Young Dan Evans. He suspected him of being less simple and ignorant than he seemed to be on the surface. He suspected himself of having been dangerously indiscreet in so quickly accepting that long-legged youth as nothing but a source of profit.
“He worked me for a rube, I do believe,” he reflected. “I must get him before he gets me; an’ then, if I can’t scare him off I’ll have to buy him off. I reckon he’ll scare easy enough, if he’s mixed up with Jim Conley.”
But would that young fellow scare easily? There had been a look in his eyes that said “no” to the scare idea.
There was no shorter course between the Bend and Harlow than the river road. There was no bee-line through the woods that would cut so much as a yard off it. Mr. Watt knew this. He drove straight into the town and stabled his horse. Then he walked back beyond the up-river end of the town, accompanied by a middle-aged, middle-sized, seedy looking man with whom he seemed to be very well acquainted. So narrow is that small town that two men could easily keep an eye on all the ways of entrance to it at either end. Mr. Watt and his friend took up positions of advantage several hundred yards apart and waited.