"I want you to promise me something," I said, "whether it seems to
you irrelevant or not. I want you not to come here again by
yourself, at any time. It's a lonely place and it isn't particularly
safe. If you come at all, bring your brother with you."
The smile that was on her lips at first faded abruptly, leaving her
face serious.
"The rail was cut," she said quietly. "Is that what you mean? It
must have been, because it was perfectly solid a few days ago."
"Someone has been up to mischief. If there are characters of that
kind in the neighbourhood, it's best to run no risks, that's all."
We walked on a few paces, silently. The mill was on our right, a
desolate-looking building enough, with its surrounding litter of
sodden chips and piles of cut logs lying here and there In the open.
A heavy smell of decaying wood was in the air, added to the stagnant
odour of the dam itself.
The setter was in front of us, sniffing to and fro on the trail of
the rats that infested the wood piles. Suddenly he stood still, his
ears laid back, growling ominously. A short, thick-set figure
slipped from the angle of the mill wall and vanished in the woods on
the farther side of the cart-track.
"Aaron Menning," Miss Lessing said. She put her hand and called the
dog back. I was staring up the track where the chicken-huckster had
so adroitly disappeared.
"Does he live near here?"
"Not very far off. I suppose he comes here to fish. There are a
good many in the dam."
"Very probable," I said.
"I dislike that man," Mary said after a moment. "I guess it's
mutual, too. The other one, Jake, you know, had a quarrel with my
brother one time. He was always loitering round the house, and Dick
turned him away. Aaron's always very civil when we meet, but I don't
believe he likes us any more than Jakey did."
We took a turning past the mill that led us, without further event,
to the Lessings' bungalow. Within sight of the house I parted from
her. I wanted to see Lessing again, but there were a few points that
needed readjustment in my own mind first. As I walked slowly home
down the familiar slope of Dutchman's Hill I was thinking that the
industrious and chapel-going Aaron might very well bear a little
watching.