Page:Harold Titus--Timber.djvu/246

238 Goddard, on lookout in Watch Pine—for the fair days had dried the country and distant brush fires sent up wraiths of pale smoke—saw them come as he had seen them go. His hand clutched the battered field glasses and his knee against the rail of the crow's nest trembled.

Philip Rowe had arrived that morning and was in his room at dusk when John's knuckles fell on the door. He received his caller, deferential, suave, courteous, but now there was open irony in his manner and voice as he bade Taylor be seated beside the table which was littered with reports that Tolman had made, for the cruiser had gone back to the forest after that telephone conversation with old Luke and covered its most remote parts thoroughly.

No words were bandied this time. Taylor came to the point at once.

"Evidently I started the thing that I was trying to make impossible."

Rowe shrugged and smoked deliberately.

"Your father never did fancy long-time investments; and he's a bit touchy on any matter of conservation. It doesn't sound practical to him."

"Did you tell him what I told you about the work that this pine represents, about the fact that a girl has been carrying the load alone?"

He put that question sharply and Rowe's gaze locked with his; the lip over his cigar moved slightly.

"I told him everything you said, Taylor," defensively. "Are you thinking that I deliberately caused trouble between you and your father?"

There was bravado in that question, a show of fearless frankness, which did not sound real. Quickly Taylor