He had deliberately chosen to come in his car, so that there might be every indication, should there be such a thing as a spy in his rather diminutive office, that he merely intended a jaunt through a few States, certainly not a journey half across the country.
But just the same, the news had leaked; Thayer had been informed, and his arrival had been no surprise.
That there had been need for his coming, Barry felt sure.

At the least, there was mismanagement at the mill; contract after contract lost just when it should have been gained told him this, if nothing more.

But--and he drew a sheet of yellow paper from his pocket and stared hard at it--there was something else, something which had aroused his curiosity to an extent of suspicion, something which might mean an open book of information to him if only he could reach Tabernacle at the right moment and gain access to the telegraph files without the interference of the agent.
Then suddenly he ceased his study of the message and returned it to his pocket.

Two persons were approaching the cabin from the opposite hill,--a girl whom he was glad to see, and a man who walked, or rather rolled, in the background: Medaine Robinette and a sort of rear guard who, twenty or thirty feet behind her, followed her every step, trotted when she ran down the steep side of an embankment, then slowed as she came to a walk again.

A bow-legged creature he was, with ill-fitting clothing and a broad "two-gallon" hat which evidently had been bequeathed to him by some cow-puncher, long hair which straggled over his shoulders, and a beaded vest which shone out beneath the scraggly outer coat like a candle on a dark night.