Come on in."
She winced inwardly at his words, but made no outward sign, as she came
up to his bedside. The nurse went out.
"Perhaps you'd better not talk?" she said.
"Oh, nonsense," he retorted feebly. "I'm all right. Sore as the mischief
and weak. But I don't feel as bad as I might. Linda still asleep?"
"I think so," Stella answered.
"Poor kid," he breathed; "it's been tough on her. Well, I guess it's
been tough on everybody. He turned out to be some bad actor, this
Monohan party. I never did like the beggar. He was a little too
high-handed in his smooth, kid-glove way. But I didn't suppose he'd try
to burn up a million dollars' worth of timber to satisfy a grudge. Well,
he put his foot in it proper at last. He'll get a good long jolt in the
pen, if the boys don't beat the constables to him and take him to
pieces."
"He did start the fire then?" Stella muttered.
"I guess so," Benton replied. "At any rate, he kept it going. Did it by
his lonesome, too. Jack suspected that. We were watching for him as well
as fighting fire. He'd come down from the head of the lake in that speed
boat of his, and this time daylight caught him before he could get back
to where he had her cached, after starting a string of little fires in
the edge of my north limit. He had it in for me, too, you know; I batted
him over the head with a pike-pole here at the wharf one day this
spring, so he plunked me as soon as I hollered at him. I wish he'd done
it earlier in the game.
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