The secrecy of the Indian's movements might be accounted for by a natural reserve, and specially by a shyness before the uniform. But where was he hiding? That he was never far away was apparent. Mahon added to his other duties this new trail.
He realised the difficulty of his task after several distinct twinges of that strange sense developed in the wary at being under unseen eyes. It could not be a bohunk, for the workmen were not clever enough to trail him unseen. Also it was not an inimical inspection. Only the Indian could trail the trailer with such unerring confidence.
It was not unnatural, therefore, that as time went on the Indian assumed the proportions of a gripping mystery.
On the track of the new problem, Sergeant Mahon took to roaming the woods by night. His reward was unexpected and unsought--it had no connection whatever with the Indian. He discovered that the bohunks were meeting in their hundreds under cover of the darkness. To satisfy himself that an outside menace was not added to the perils surrounding the trestle, Mahon took to inspecting the camp from hiding whenever he came on one of these gatherings. The fact that they were composed of the ordinary bohunks of the camp, on some nights almost emptying it, relieved him.
He was turning his attention more directly to these meetings in the woods, when something happened to alter his plan.
The tang of the northern evening drifted through the open door of the shack, within which the contractor lounged in his big arm chair, smoking hard but thinking harder. Near the table, bending to let the full light from window and door fall on her work, Tressa stitched at a rip in a disreputable old vest of her father's.
The days were getting noticeably shorter, and the advance breath of the long, tight winter was beginning to add a new snap to the air. The noises of the camp drifted up over the grade fitfully, dreamily; some new hunger that might have been called homesickness was urging a new tone into the evening sounds.
Torrance, the stability of his work assured, imagined that he was supremely happy. But life had lost a fraction of its zip, though he refused to acknowledge it.
But Tressa knew it. Idleness was worse than medicine to her father, and for days he had been fuming with impatience for the opening of the last operation, more than a little irritable. She knew it as she watched the smoke breathe more slowly from his lips and the pipe grow cold. Presently, without opening his eyes, he dropped the pipe on the table and nestled his head against the cushion. Tressa smiled, for she was happier than her father--and Adrian would be up shortly.