Page:The Millbank Case - 1905 - Eldridge.djvu/131

 CHAPTER VIII

A Man Disappears

Trafford sent a hasty note to McManus, postponing the afternoon appointment, and made ready to visit the logging drives at work along the Kennebec. It was certain that no physician in Millbank had set a broken shoulder or arm within the twenty-four hours; no man of the character sought had left by any of the trains or stages, and the river afforded the only unguarded means of escape. A canoe or river-driver's boat could easily come and go unnoticed, and it tallied with other points in hand that the assailants were connected with the logging interests. Another point in the case was that, in almost all the large gangs of drivers, there was sure to be some one roughly skilled in surgery, who could attend to minor accidents and even, temporarily, to those of a severer nature, such as are apt to occur, often at points far distant from skilled practitioners. Such a man could, under