"Thanks jest the same," said Blackstock drily, pulling out his wallet, "but I guess Woolly Billy'd jest as soon have the two-fifty one. An' I'll pay ye the cash right now. No signin' orders fer me. Here's my name an' address."
"Right ye are," agreed the stranger cordially, pocketing the money and signing the receipt. "Cash payments for me every time, if I could have my way. Now, if some o' you other gentlemen will follow Mr. Blackstock's fine example, ye'll never regret it--an' neither will I."
"Come on, Woolly Billy. Come on, Jim," said Blackstock, stepping out into the street with the child and the dog at his heels. "We'll be gittin' along home, an' leave this gentleman to argy with the boys."
Jake Sanderson, with the pay for the mill-hands, did not arrive that night, nor yet the following morning. Along toward noon, however, there arrived a breathless stripling, white-faced and wild-eyed, with news of him. The boy was young Stephens, son of Andy Stephens, the game-warden. He and his father, coming up from Cribb's Ridge, had found the body of Sanderson lying half in a pool beside the road, covered with blood. Near at hand lay the bag, empty, slashed open with a bloody knife. Stephens had sent his boy on into the Settlement for help, while he himself had remained by the body, guarding it lest some possible clue should be interfered with.
Swift as a grass fire, the shocking news spread through the village. An excited crowd gathered in front of the store, every one talking at once, trying to question young Stephens. The Sheriff was away, down at Fredericton for a holiday from his arduous duties. But nobody lamented his absence. It was his deputy they all turned to in such an emergency.
"Where's Tug Blackstock?" demanded half a dozen awed voices. And, as if in answer, the tall, lean figure of the Deputy Sheriff of Nipsiwaska County came striding in haste up the sawdusty road, with the big, black dog crowding eagerly upon his heels.
The clamour of the crowd was hushed as Blackstock put a few questions, terse and pertinent, to the excited boy. The people of Nipsiwaska County in general had the profoundest confidence in their Deputy Sheriff. They believed that his shrewd brain and keen eye could find a clue to the most baffling of mysteries. Just now, however, his face was like a mask of marble, and his eyes, sunk back into his head, were like points of steel. The murdered man had been one of his best friends, a comrade and helper in many a hard enterprise.