and driven rapidly
down toward the camp.

He had almost reached the conclusion that the copy of the partnership
agreement which Hawk had held as a threat over McGuire had ceased to
exist--that it had been lost, effaced or destroyed. But he wanted to be
more certain of this before he came out into the open, showed his hand
and McGuire's and defied the blackmailer to do his worst. He felt pretty
sure now from his own knowledge of the man that, desperate though he was
in his intention to gain a fortune by this expedient, he was absolutely
powerless to do evil without the signature of McGuire. The question as
to whether or not he would make a disagreeable publicity of the whole
affair was important to McGuire and had to be avoided if possible, for
Peter had given his promise to bring the affair to a quiet conclusion.

Until he could have a further talk with McGuire, he meant to lead Hawk
Kennedy on to further confidences and with this end in view and with the
further purpose of getting him away from the Cabin, had promised to meet
him late that afternoon at a fork of the road to the lumber camp, the
other prong of which led to a settlement of several shanties where Hawk
had managed to get a lodging on the previous night and on several other
occasions. In his talk with the ex-waiter he learned that on his
previous visits the man had made a careful survey of the property and
knew his way about almost as well as Peter did. It appeared that he also
knew something of Peter's problems at the lumber camp and the
difficulties the superintendent had already encountered in getting his
sawed lumber to the railroad and in completing his fire-towers. Indeed,
these difficulties seemed only to have begun again, and it was with
great regret that Peter was obliged to forego the opportunity of seeing
Beth that day, perhaps even that evening. But he had told her nothing of
his troubles the night before, not wishing to cloud a day so fair for
them both.

The facts were these: Flynn and Jacobi, the men he had dismissed, had
appeared again at the camp in his absence, bent on fomenting trouble,
and Shad Wells, already inflamed against the superintendent, had fallen
an easy prey to their machinations. Accidents were always happening at
the sawmills, accidents to machinery and implements culminating at last
in the blowing out of a tube of one of the boilers. It was this
misfortune that had held the work up for several days until a spare
boiler c