“We had nothing to do with starting it,” Zorn added emphatically.
Hagle was shaking his head. “No, we didn’t set that going, Sam. Ed woke up and saw the glow, and came over to our house, and threw pebbles at my window till I woke up. Then we took the boat and crossed the lake to see what was happening. The boat drifted off. It was gone when we came back to where we had landed. Then you came along, and—well, we didn’t want you to see us; for you’d think, of course, we’d set the woods afire. And it wouldn’t have been easy for us to explain being there. And so we ran—and, well, you know the rest of it.”
Sam reflected a moment. “Jack,” he said, “if I take your word about the second fire, and agree that it must have been the first breaking out again when the wind rose, how about the first itself? That first fire was very close to our camp. All of us had been away all day. And that fire wasn’t due to spontaneous combustion.”
“I—I don’t know how it started.”
“Were you—you and Zorn, or either of you—on this side of the lake this afternoon?”
Hagle cast an unhappy glance at Zorn, who made answer for him:
“Yes, we were across—both of us.”
A murmur rose from the club.
“We were across; we saw the fire,” said Zorn steadily. “But we didn’t start it. It was going when we came along. Who set it, then? Nobody—intentionally; at least, that’s my idea. You see, there are people going through every now and then; sometimes the workmen take an afternoon off and wander around. Then there are fellows on fishing trips. Some of them are careless with matches and cigar stubs. Somebody was careless to-day—anyway, that’s my theory.... And the fire wasn’t much of a blaze when we saw it.”
“Did you try to put it out?” Sam asked.