"Both of who? A factor only gets away in the summer."
"So they do--so they do," answered McNabb, absently. "Well, we'll be
goin' back now. My engineer, maybe, will be wantin' a conference."
XXIV
A rather strained silence greeted the entrance of McNabb into the
trading room. Jean and Murchison occupied the only two chairs the room
boasted, and Wentworth leaned against the counter, a half-sneering
smile on his lips. McNabb advanced to the group beneath the huge
swinging lamp, and Sven Larsen lingered in the shadows near the door.
The half-sneer changed to a look of open defiance, as Wentworth faced
McNabb. "It seems," he said truculently, "that I am guilty of a
serious _faux pas_ in mentioning a bit of Terrace City scandal that
reached my ears concerning the elopement of your estimable fur clerk,
Hedin, and a Russian sable coat. The idiot didn't have the brains to
get away with it. If you'd have been wiser you would have waited until
you could have laid hands on the coat, and then locked up your fur
clerk."
"H-m-m, maybe ye're right," answered McNabb.
"And," continued Wentworth, emboldened by the placidity of the other's
tone, "if you had been wiser, you wouldn't have lost your pulp-wood
holdings. Oh, there's no use beating about the bush--I knew the minute
Jean told me you had come in by the tote-road, that you had seen the
Eureka trucks hauling in Eureka material.
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