Keeping the table between them, and braced against the ruse of a push against it to upset him, Chick opened an end of the tracing and verified his earlier guess.
The tracing certainly looked like the rough sketch for an airplane, with most of the bracing and internal structure of the fuselage inked in heavily, with the wide-spanning, thin, speedy “slotted” wings sketched in more lightly, with the tail assembly marked on, and with innumerable sets of figures, in ink, underneath the drawing.
Swiftly he rolled it up and put it back into his upper coat pocket, being sure that it could neither shake nor be dropped out by folding it over, jamming it down as far as he could, and snapping a safety pin he saw in the drawer across the pocket top. Doe watched him with a woebegone look, as Chick judged it to be.
“I don’t know what you’re hiding, I don’t that! Nor why you say I’m what I declare I ain’t no such a thing—a traitor. But I’m going on home, and doctor me up myself some.”
“Go on!” Chick braced for a rush, a surprise.
None came.
Moodily, with head bent, Doc walked to the doorway and out. Following him, Chick saw him, picked out by the flashes, cross the planks and disappear in the winding path.
“Who was that?”
Scott, coming around the side of the hovel from the wharf, made his presence known, asking the question sharply.
“Doc Morgan,” Chick responded. “I found him here. He had finished off a bottle, and he had some tracings. I guess I forgot and left them out on the designing room table when we were talking about our plan for tonight.”