"I heard nothing of it," said Wade. He leaned forward with excitement in his face, for the tone and the air of the lumberman were ominous.
"He was at my camp, and Lane, the Jerusalem warden, after having words with him over an old matter between them, made Mr. Barrett go away into the woods with him--and I think Lane was about half crazy at the time."
"And you let an insane man force Mr. Barrett into the woods?" demanded Wade, indignantly.
Withee straightened, and his face took on a sort of sullen pride. "It's on that point that I want to explain to you, for my own sake. I don't know whether you're a friend of John Barrett's or whether you ain't. But when I hear him confess right before me that he has stolen away another man's wife and broken up that man's home forever, and has never done anything to square himself, then I let that matter alone, for it's a matter between man and man. And my men and I let John Barrett and Linus Lane settle their own business."
"How?" cried Wade, his face pale. "My God, man, it can't be that John Barrett did a thing like--"
"I heard him own to it," persisted Withee. "And what's more, it's John Barrett's daughter that lived with the Skeets and the Bushees, abandoned by him. And when I know a thing like that about a man, Mr. Wade, he can't look to Barn Withee to stand behind him."
Dwight Wade staggered back against the tree and put his arms around it to steady himself. Had he not seen the girl he might have scorned to believe such a story. But all his first emotions at sight of her there in her squalid surroundings rushed back upon him now. He had seen in this forest waif too many suggestions of Elva Barrett, and had been ashamed to own to himself that his heart confessed as much, as though it were an insult to the girl who reigned in his heart.
"So, I say," repeated Withee, as if to reassure himself, "I let them settle their own business."
"You can prove nothing by me," said the lumberman, with a toss of his hand and wag of his head, pregnant gestures of disclaimed responsibility. "But that old fellow sitting on that ding-swingle never put those hints together without havin' something about it on his mind. I never knew trouble to happen in these woods unless he was there to see some part of it."