Lockwood returned in depression to the turpentine camp, and spent the rest of that idle Sunday in anxiety and self-reproach. He seemed to have muddled¹ things badly. He had blundered into a condition of open war with the Powers. He had given Hanna every opportunity to stack all the cards against him. His usefulness was destroyed. He might as well, he thought, revert² to his first plan of settling it with Hanna at the pistol’s point. But what, then, of Louise? Gunpowder³ would hardly solve the situation as it stood now.  
He was sorry that he had proposed that Louise meet him on the bayou. It would be the wildest folly⁴. He did not think that she would come. But she might come. All the next forenoon he kept as close to the bayou shore as he could. More than once he tore down to the water, imagining that he heard the boat’s engine. They were false alarms, and he felt deeply relieved when afternoon came, and she had not appeared.
 
All the next day he was in a tension of dread⁵ and expectancy⁶, and the next one after. But days passed; a week passed, and he ceased to look for the boat. He wondered in vain what she was doing. He began to be afraid that she would not come, and he could not imagine any safe means of getting into touch with her.
 
Twice or thrice he passed the Power automobile⁷ on the road, but Louise was never in it. He met Hanna once, who gave him an ironically deferential⁸ bow. He thought of using the telephone at the commissary store, which was connected with the Power house. It was a rural wire that ran to Bay Minette. You could get connections with Mobile—with New York, for that matter, if you waited long enough.
 
Craig had once rung up New Orleans to get a quotation⁹ on rosin, though it had taken him nearly all day to get through. The telephone was in the Powers’ hall; its use could be heard all over the house; but if he could ever happen to know that Louise was alone there he resolved to try it.
 
Once, indeed, he was lucky enough to espy¹⁰ the big car speeding westward¹¹ with Hanna and the three Power men aboard. He hastened back to the camp, but to his disgust the commissary store was full of loungers, turpentine men and farmers, talking, smoking, laughing close beside the telephone. He waited an hour, and then gave it up.
 
But the very next morning, before ten o’clock, he heard the unmistakable thud-thud of a gasoline engine on the water. He was two hundred yards inland, but he dashed at a gallop¹² down to the bayou, and saw the motor boat moving slowly up the mud-colored channel, with Louise at the wheel, anxiously scanning the shore.
 
Dismounting, he caught her attention and signaled her where to steer¹³ inland. The boat came alongside a big, half sunken log. He took her hand and helped her out. He almost yielded to the impulse to draw her close to him, but her face showed that this was no time for sentiment.
 
“I’m glad you’ve come,” he said. “What is it? Has anything happened?”
 
“I didn’t mean to come. I had to. I was afraid—I didn’t know what to do,” she said, breathing fast. “It was the only chance. I knew everybody was going out in the car this morning. I was to go, too, but I made an excuse. It’s that oil well, you know. Papa and the boys are going to buy more of the stock.”
 
“How much more?”
 
“Perhaps twenty or thirty thousand dollars.”
 
Lockwood whistled softly.
 
“But I understood that no more was on the market.”
 
“Yes. But a member of the company has just died—so Mr. Hanna says—and his shares are to be sold. He showed us the letter. They want one hundred and twenty dollars a share now. Mr. Hanna said he could get two hundred dollars, but he wanted to let his friends in first. There are about three hundred shares, and the boys are wild to have them.”
 
“I see,” said Lockwood dryly. “But nothing has been done yet?”
 
“They talked it all over last night. Mr. Hanna didn’t urge it much, but he said it was the chance of a lifetime; he thinks the shares may be worth five hundred dollars in a year or two. I said all I could against it, but it didn’t do any good. The boys don’t think a woman knows anything of business, but they do think a great deal of your opinion, and I wish you’d give them some advice.”
 
“Well, there’s only one thing I could say—that I don’t believe the stock is worth a cent, that I don’t believe there is any oil well at all, and perhaps not even any company. But I couldn’t say that without some definite information to back it up.”
 
“Of course, Hanna would deny everything you said, and I suppose papa and the boys would take his word,” said Louise in distress¹⁴. “That man seems to have bewitched them all. Wish he had never come here. He tormented¹⁵ me so in New Orleans——”
 
“In New Orleans!” Lockwood exclaimed.
 
She hesitated, clasping and unclasping her hands. Then she looked at him frankly¹⁶.
 
“He was a nightmare to me. He persecuted¹⁷ me—followed me. That was partly why I left and came here—to get away from him.”
 
“Ah!” said Lockwood, with a long breath between his teeth. “And he followed you here?”
 
“I don’t know. I suppose so. He came up on the boat and stopped a day............