Well, he was right.

Al Auchincloss is on his last legs.

Poor old man! When I tell him he'll never believe ME, that's sure!" Discovery of the plot meant to Dale that he must hurry down to Pine.
"A girl--Helen Rayner--twenty years old," he mused.

"Beasley wants her made off with....

That means--worse than killed!" Dale accepted facts of life with that equanimity and fatality acquired by one long versed in the cruel annals of forest lore.