Nobody can see his dugout from the road, and his oil-heater
doesn't make any smoke. That scheme of laying insulated wires on the
ground works like a charm. You could walk all over them without noticing
them." The young man was opening the door as he spoke, and he broke off
suddenly to say: "That's his call ringing now. Would you like to come
and talk to him?"
"No; you can tell me what he says, if it's worth telling."
The clerk disappeared into the room of the tapping noises, but he was
back again almost immediately.
"It was Canby," he said hurriedly. "He says two men on horseback have
just dragged a good-sized pine-tree down the Shonoho road and are
placing it across the county road. He can't see the men's faces very
well, but he thinks the bigger of the two is Jack Barto."
It was the senator's boast that he had never lost a tooth or had one
filled, and his smile showed the double row, strong and evenly matched,
under the drooping grayish mustaches.
"That boy Canby is a mighty good guesser, Fred. I shouldn't be surprised
if the fellow he has spotted _is_ Jack Barto, sure enough. If you didn't
know beforehand what a good-natured, meechin' sort of rooster Jack is,
you might think he was fixing to play some kind of a hold-up game on
somebody."
"That's what Canby thinks, and he asked me to hold the wire open.
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