Page:Harold Titus--Timber.djvu/43

Rh "All righ' fer you," whined Lucius. "I know who you are; I'm glad White put one over—Lemme drive an' I won't be glad—'s tis, I am!"

So this backwoods moron, even, knew something about his affairs that John Taylor did not know and for a moment his apprehension mingled with the chagrin of one left outside an open secret.

The car functioned as well as one of its age and condition of servitude could possibly do. They climbed the ridge and slid down the far side. Lucius drank again and leaned heavily against the other and insisted that their destination was not far.

A train paralleled their course and soon they came in sight of buildings; a scattering of tar-paper houses, with a small water-power mill on a damned creek. A saw whined within and two Indians were loading pulp wood into a gondola on the siding. There were piles of thin lumber and banks of small logs.

"That's her mill," said the boy.

"Whose?"

"Helen Forsakersh—Her mill."

"Which way now? The road forks."

"Keep lef'—lef'—."

They turned, crossed the head of the mill pond and plunged into the gloom of thick timber. At first Taylor paid little attention, for there was the usual mixture of oak, poplar and small pines. The road was straight and even and had been plowed. The oak disappeared, the trees became larger; he craned his neck to look up and grunted in surprise. He was in a dense pine forest, silent and fresh and bearing no evidence of fire. He slowed the car and looked out curiously. They were small trees,