Page:The Millbank Case - 1905 - Eldridge.djvu/208

 Étienne's mother when he took him away to go on the drive. And with these words, the lad dashed into the woods for his mile run back to camp.

Trafford caught himself perilously near a sigh, as the lad disappeared among the trees.

"It's as plain as the nose on your face—that part of it," he said. "Hunter sent for these men; had them go to the forks to join a pretended gang, and word was left there for 'em to go on to the hut back of the Madison Beeches."

"Hunter?" his companion asked.

"Certainly. Isn't he the man who owns the trees to such a simple lad as that? He don't know the name—but we do, Charles Hunter of Millbank."

"Then he's concerned in the murder?"

"If you knew the things that aren't to be seen as well as you do the things that you see, you'd beat us all," Trafford answered. "If he was in the murder, he'd know where those papers are and wouldn't have needed these men. His very desperation to get them shows he isn't the murderer."

"Then Charles Hunter's the man who's afraid