Olaf hesitated, then swung about without replying and strode off up the hill.
“Imposter!” cried Dabney after him. “Liar!” He caught sight suddenly of Beatrice beside the gate and changed his manner quickly.
“Good evening,” he said pleasantly, “might I ask——”
He had glanced upward toward Olaf, disappearing in the dusk, so that Beatrice guessed the question concerned him, and interrupted.
“There is no use in your asking me anything,” she said. “We are all very tired of your questions, and think you have no right to ask them.”
“Oh, I don’t want to inquire about him,” returned Dabney, indicating Olaf with a jerk of his thumb. “I know who he is all right—Christina’s boy that went off to sea, and that has such a warm welcome waiting for him in Ely. I found out who he was the day the bear knocked me out. I came to and saw him hanging over that precipice and I knew, all in a minute, that only a sailor could have the head to do such a thing. I had my suspicions before, and I only needed that to make me sure.”
“If you tell about him in the village,” said Beatrice, growing rather indiscreet in the defense of Olaf, “he may have something to tell about you and my sister and the bear.”
“Oh, I don’t care to talk very much about him for a while,” Dabney declared hastily. “It’s another person I have my eye on—bigger game than Olaf Jensen. I’m trying to find out who took that money and broke up the work down in Ely. And I’ve about found out, too.”
He gave her a long meaning look and turned away.
“Wait!” cried Beatrice. “You don’t mean that you think Olaf——” She could not go on.
“What’s he hanging around here for, afraid to show himself and afraid to go away? Oh, he’s in it all right; he may even have done the actual stealing, but not just for himself. There’s some one else involved—some one higher up. I’ll soon be able to tell who took the company’s money and wrecked the whole project.”
“Who?” the question broke from Beatrice in a cry of anger, but she felt also a sickening dread and foreboding of what his answer would be.
“Oh, I’m not telling—yet,” he replied, quite restored to his usual impudent calm. “He’s a fellow that it will be hard to prove anything against. Most people, even the laborers, talk pretty well of him, and nobody knows anything to his discredit. Nobody knows very much about him at all, as far as I can make out. But I’ve got my proofs all lined up and with just a little more——”