“Jove!” exclaimed Bainbridge through his clenched teeth. “I didn’t know a man could be so rotten!” He stared at the wreck for a minute longer, and then turned over with his foot the square, wooden box which lay upset in the middle of the mess. Apparently it had served Schaeffer as a receptacle for these same records. It was quite empty, but underneath lay something which brought a thoughtful, questioning expression into the searcher’s face, and made him stoop to pick it up. “Thirty-eight caliber,” he murmured, staring at the freshly opened pasteboard box which had contained fifty cartridges. “Hum!” Presently he let it drop again. He did not move for a space, but stood staring at the ground with that same odd, thoughtful pucker in his forehead. There was nothing surprising in the fact of Schaeffer’s being armed, Neither was it strange for a man in the riverman’s position to carry off his ammunition loose instead of in the box. That was not the point. It was simply the train of thought aroused which struck Bainbridge unpleasantly. He felt Schaeffer to be capable of almost any villainy provided it could be accomplished with safety to himself. The humiliation of that fight, too, had added a powerful incentive to the one already offered by Crane and the Lumber Trust for the eclipse of Bob Bainbridge. And a total eclipse would be so easy! Just a single shot fired from the bushes at a moment when there was no one else about to see or hear. In this wild country the chances of escaping were infinite. The man might not even be suspected. Bob suddenly moved his shoulders impatiently, frowned, and turned away. A moment later his eyes twinkled mirthfully. “Another minute and I’d have the undertaker picked out,” he chuckled. “The scoundrel hasn’t the common courage to do murder. All the same,” he added, with a decisive squaring of the shoulders, “I’ll put a crimp in his little game about those records. I’ll have cookee scrape ’em all up, and ship the whole bunch down to John. That clerk, Wiggins, can put ’em together, I’ll bet! Patience is his middle name--patience and picture puzzles. We’ll have the laugh on Pete, after all--hanged if we won’t!” CHAPTER IX. IN THE SWIFT CURRENT The clumsy, slow-moving scow loaded with the cook’s outfit and a supply of bedding followed the drive downstream, and, that night, fastened up to the bank close to the inlet of Deer Pond, the middle one of three small bodies of water strung along the length of the Megantic. It was a full day’s work, much better than Bainbridge had hoped for, and, as he approached the big drying fire flaming up at one side of the camp made by Charlie Hanley, the cook, Bob shook his own hand in silent, grinning self-congratulation. He knew that they were far from being out of the woods yet, but a good beginning always means a lot, and he had no word to say against this start-off.