“He did.”
I told him how Bride had expressed it. Prop’s eyes narrowed to little
slits. One of the two Douglas ships that had come down from the States a
month ago got off the field, her left wing drooping a bit. We both
watched her climb toward the clouds that were drifting up north from
Mindoro way.
“That’s Bert up,” Prop muttered. “Mac, I don’t like it. Bride’s too
damned calm about things. He’s waiting for something to break. Never
cracked a word to the board. You read the report—native gone heat crazy,
attacking him. What a lot of bunk that was! Why, even the boys are wise
that something funny happened that night.”
“Bert’s been ducking me,” I told Prop. “What did he say to you about
it?”
“He’s been running out on me, too,” Prop returned. “I got hold of him
the day after the mess, and he pulled the surprise stuff. I told him to
come out of it, that I knew he’d started for the Walled City, and he got
sore. Acted sore, anyway. Said he’d done nothing of the sort.”