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CHAPTER XIII
THE OTHER LADY’S HUSBAND
Miss Knowles did not seem to observe Ashton’s deflection. She remained worshipfully downbent over the wriggling, chuckling baby until its parents reappeared.
Mrs. Blake had changed to an easy and serviceable dress of plain, strong material. The skirt, cut to walking length, showed that her feet and ankles were protected by a pair of absurdly small laced boots. Her husband had shifted to an equally serviceable costume–flannel shirt, broad-brimmed felt hat, and surveyor’s boots.
“Crossing the plains we packed a trunk with what we considered most necessary,” said Mrs. Blake, as she took the baby. “It is not a large one, and in addition there is only my satchel and the level and the lunch my maid is putting up for us.”
“There is room for more, if you wish,” replied Isobel. “But we can send over here for anything you need, any time.”
“You’re not going to let us really rough-it!” complained Mrs. Blake, as her husband swung her to the ground. “Were it not for Thomas Herbert–”
“–We’d go to Africa again and eat lions,” Blake completed the sentence. “Wait, though–we may have a chance at mountain lions.”
The porter had gone to help a manservant fetch the trunk from the other end of the car. Isobel untied the saddle horses from the rear of the buckboard. The trunk was lifted in, and Blake lashed it on, together with his level rod and tripod, using Ashton’s lariat.
“Level is in the trunk,” he explained, in response to Ashton’s look of inquiry. “I suppose we ride.”
“I think it will be better if Lafe drives,” objected Isobel. “I am so reckless, and you don’t know the road, as he does. The only thing is Rocket–Lafe has about trained him out of his tricks. But I should warn you that the hawss has been rather vicious.”
“Tom will ride him,” confidently stated Mrs. Blake.
Her husband took the bridle reins of the big horse and mounted him with the agility of a cowboy. For a moment Rocket stood motionless. Then, whether because of Blake’s weight or the fact that he was a stranger, all the beast’s newly acquired docility vanished. He began to plunge and buck even more violently than when first mounted by Ashton.
Half a hundred Stockchuteites–all the residents of the town and several floaters–had come down to inspect the palatial private car and its passengers. At Rocket’s first leap these highly interested spectators broke into a murmur of joyful anticipation. They were about to see the millionaire tenderfoot pull leather.
Yet somehow the event failed to transpire. Blake sat the flat saddle as if glued fast to it. His knees and legs were crushing against the sides of the leaping, whirling beast with the firmness of an iron vise. He held both hands upraised, away from the “leather.”
Presently Rocket’s efforts began to flag. Instead of seeking to quiet the frantic beast, Blake began to whoop and to strike him with his hat. Thus taunted, Rocket resorted to his second trick. He took the bit in his teeth and started to bolt. The crowd scattered before the rush of the runaway. But they need not have moved. Blake reached down on each side of the beast’s outstretched neck and pulled. Tough-mouthed as he was, Rocket could not resist that powerful grip. His head was drawn down and backwards until his trumpet nostrils blew against his deep chest. After half a dozen wild plunges, he was forced to a stand, snorting but subdued.
“That’s some riding, Miss Chuckie!” called the burly sheriff of the county. “Your guest forks a hawss like a buster.”
The girl rode forward beside Blake, her face radiant. She paid him the highest of compliments by taking his riding as a matter of course; but in her eyes was a look strangely like that of his wife’s fond gaze,–a look of pride at his achievement, rather than admiration.
“We’ll ride ahead of the team to keep clear of the dust,” she remarked.
He twisted about and saw that Ashton was starting to drive after them. His wife’s elderly maid was waving her handkerchief from one of the car windows. The porter and the manservant stood at attention. He exchanged a nod and smile with his wife, patted Rocket’s arched neck and clicked to him to start.
“This is great, Miss Knowles!” he said. “I did not look for such fun, first crack out of the box. And–if you don’t mind my saying it–it’s such a jolly surprise your being what you are.”
The girl blushed with pleasure. “I–we have been so eager to meet you,” she murmured. She added hurriedly, “On account of your wonderful work as an engineer, you know.”
“I wouldn’t have suspected Ashton of bragging for me,” he replied.
“Oh, he–he says you have a remarkable knack of hitting on the solution of problems. But it’s in the engineering journals and reports that we’ve read about your work. Perhaps that is why you thought we had met before. After reading about you so much, I felt that I already knew you, and so my manner, you know–”
He shook his head at this seemingly ingenuous explanation. “No, there is something about your voice and face–” His eyes clouded with the grief of a painful memory; his head sank forward until his square chin touched his broad chest. He muttered brokenly: “But that’s impossible… Anyway–better for them they died–better than to live after…”
Behind her veil the girl’s face became deathly white. He raised his head and looked at her with a wistful gleam of hope. She had averted her face from him and was gazing off at the hills with dim unseeing eyes.
“Pardon me, Miss Knowles,” he said, “but do you mind if I ask what is your first name?”
She hesitated almost imperceptibly before replying: “I am called Chuckie–Chuckie Knowles. Doesn’t that sound cowgirlish? We always have a chuck-wagon on the round-ups, you know. But it’s a name that used to be quite common in the West.”
“Yes, it comes from the Spanish Chiquita,” he said. He repeated the word with the soft caressing Spanish accent, “Che-keé-tah!”
A flood of scarlet swept up into the girl’s pallid face, and slowly subsided to her normal rich coloring. After a short silence she asked in a conventional tone: “I suppose you are glad to get away from Chicago. The last papers we received say that the East is sweltering in one of those smothery heat waves.”
“It’s the humidity and close air that kills,” said Blake. “I ought to know. I lived for years in the slums.”
“Oh, you–you really speak of it–openly!” the girl exclaimed.
“What of it?” he asked, astonished in turn at her lack of tact.
“Nothing–nothing,” she hastened to disclaim. “Only I know–have read about the dreadful conditions in the Chicago slums. It is–it must be so painful to recall them–That was so rude of me to–”
“Not at all,” he interrupted. To cover her evident confusion he held up his white hand in the scorching sunrays and commented jovially: “Talk about Eastern heat–this is a hundred and five Fahrenheit at the very least! A-a-ah!” He drew in a deep breath of the dry pure air. “This is something like! When you get your land under ditch, you’ll have a paradise.”
“Oh, but you do not understand,” she replied. “We want you to find out and tell us that Dry Mesa cannot be watered. Irrigation would break up Daddy’s range and put him out of business. It is just what we do not want.”
“I see,” said Blake, with instant comprehension of the situation.
“I know it cannot be done. But there are so many reclamation projects, and Daddy has read and read about them until he almost has a bee in his bonnet.”
“Yet you sent for me–an engineer.”
“Because I knew that when you told him our mesa couldn’t be watered, he would stop worrying. You know, you are quite a hero with us. We have read all about your wonderful work.”
Blake’s pale eyes twinkled. “So I’m a hero. Will you dynamite my pedestal if I figure out a way to water your range?”
She flashed him a troubled glance, but rallied for a quick rejoinder: “Even you can’t pump the water out of Deep Cañon, and Plum Creek is only a trickle most of the year.”
“I see you want me to make my report as dry as I can write it,” he bantered.
“No,” she replied, suddenly serious. “We wish the exact truth, though we hope you’ll find it dry.”
“Then you are to blame if the matter does not figure out your way,” he warned her. “You’ve given me a problem. If there is any possible way for me to irrigate your mesa, I am bound to try my best to work it out. Hadn’t you better head me off before I start in? At present I haven’t the remotest desire to do this except to comply with your wishes.”
“It’s as I told Daddy,” she said. “If there really is a way, the sooner we know it the better. It is the uncertainty that is bothering Daddy. If your report is for us, all well and good; if against us, he will stand up and fight and forget about worrying.”
“Fight?” asked Blake.
“Fight the project, fight against the formation of any irrigation district. He owns five sections. The reservoir might have to be on his patented land. He’d fight fair and square and hard–to the last ditch!”
“Isn’t that a Dutchman’s saying?” asked Blake humorously.
The girl’s tense face relaxed, and she burst out in a ringing laugh. She shifted the conversation to less serious subjects, and they cantered along together, laughing and chatting like old friends.
By this time Ashton and Mrs. Blake had gradually come to the same stage of pleasant comradeship. Ashton had started the drive in a sullen mood, his manner half resentful and wholly embarrassed. Of this the lady was tactfully oblivious. Avoiding all allusion to the catastrophe that had befallen him, she told him the latest news of the mutual friends and acquaintances in whom ordinarily he would have been expected to be interested.
She even spoke casually of his father. His face contracted with pain, but he showed no bitterness against the parent who had disowned him. After that her graciousness towards him redoubled. With Isobel for excuse, she gradually shifted the conversation to ranch life and his employment as cowboy. In many subtle ways she conveyed to him her admiration of the manner in which he had turned over a new leaf and was making a clean fresh start in life.
After delicately intimating her feelings, she at once turned to less personal topics. The last traces of his embarrassment and moodiness left him, and he began to talk quite at his ease, though with a certain reserve that she attributed to the vast change in his fortunes. In return for her kindness, he repaid her by showing a real interest in Thomas Herbert Vincent Leslie Blake.
That young man spent his time chuckling and crowing and kicking, until overcome with sleep. Two hours out from Stockchute he awoke and vociferously demanded nourishment. Promptly the party was brought to a halt. They were among the piñons on one of the hillsides. While the baby took his dinner, Isobel laid out the lunch and the men burned incense in the guise of a pair of Havana cigars produced by Blake.
The lunch might have been put up in the kitchen of a first-class metropolitan hotel. The fruit was the most luscious that money could buy; the sandwiches and cake would have tempted a sated epicure; the mineral water had come out of an ice chest so nearly frozen that it was still refreshingly cool. But–what was rather odd for a lunch packed in a private car–it included no wine or whiskey or liqueur. Blake caught Ashton’s glance, and smiled.
“You see I’m still on the waterwagon,” he remarked. “I’ve got a permanent seat. There have been times when it looked as if I might be jolted off, but–”
“But there’s never been the slightest chance of that!” put in his wife. She looked at Isobel, her soft eyes shining with love and pride. “Once he gets a grip on anything, he never lets go.”
“Oh, I can believe that!” exclaimed the girl with an enthusiasm that brought a shadow into the mobile face of Ashton.
“A man can’t help holding on when he has something to hold on for,” said Blake, gazing at his wife and baby.
“That’s true!” agreed Ashton, his eyes on the dimpled face of Isobel.
Refreshed by the delicious meal, the party prepared to start on. But they did not travel as before. While Ashton was considerately washing out the dusty nostrils of the horses with water from his canteen, Isobel decided to drive with Mrs. Blake. Declaring that it would be like old times to sit a cowboy saddle, the big engineer lengthened the girl’s stirrup leathers and swung on to the pony. This left Rocket to his owner.
At first Ashton seemed inclined to be stiff with his new road-mate. But as they jogged along, side by side, over the hills and across the sagebrush flats, Blake restricted his talk to impersonal topics and spared his companion from any allusion to their past difficulties. Throughout the ride, however, the two men maintained a certain reserve towards each other, and at no time approached the cordial intimacy that developed between the girl and Mrs. Blake before the end of their first mile together.
After telling merrily about her dual life as summer cowgirl and winter society maiden, Isobel drifted around, by seemingly casual association of ideas, to the troublesome question of irrigation on Dry Mesa, and from that to Blake and his work as an engineer.
“I do so hope Mr. Blake finds that there is no project practicable,” she went on. “He has warned me that if there seems to be any chance to work out an irrigation scheme on our mesa he is bound to try to do it.”
“And he would do it,” added Mrs. Blake with quiet confidence.
“Then I hope and pray he will find there is no chance, because Daddy would have to oppose him. That would be such a pity! He and I have read so much about Mr. Blake’s work that we have come to regard him as our–as one of our heroes.”
Mrs. Blake smiled. It was very apparent, despite the quietness and repression of her high-bred manner, that she was very much in love with her husband.
The girl continued in a meekly deferential tone: “So you will not mind my worshiping him. He is a hero, a real hero! Isn’t he?”
The words were spoken with an earnestness and sincerity that won Mrs. Blake to a like candor. “You are quite right,” she said. “Lafayette may have told you how Mr. Blake and I were wrecked on the most savage coast of Africa. He saved me from wild beasts and tropical storms, from fever and snakes,–from death in a dozen horrible forms. Then, when he had saved me–and won me, he gave me up until he could prove to himself that he was worthy of me.”
“He did?” cried the girl. “But of course!–of course!”
“Yet that was nothing to the next proof of his strength and manhood,” went on the proud wife. “He destroyed a monster more frightful than any lion or tropical snake–he overcame the curse of drink that had come down to him from–one of his parents.”
“From–from his–” whispered the girl, her averted face white and drawn with pain.
Mrs. Blake had bent over to kiss the forehead of her sleeping baby and did not see. “If only all parents knew what terrible misfortunes, what tortures, their transgressions are apt to bring upon their innocent children!” she murmured.
“He told me that he won his way up out of the–the slums,” said Isobel. “It must be some men fail to do that because they have relatives to drag them down–their families.”
“It seems hard to say it, yet I do not know but that you are right, my dear,” agreed Mrs. Blake. “Strong men, if unhampered, have a chance to fight their way up out of the social pit. But women and girls, even when they escape the–the worst down there, can hardly hope ever to attain–And of course those that fall!–Our dual code of morality is hideously unjust to our sex, yet it still is the code under which we live.”
The girl drew in a deep, sighing breath. Her eyes were dark with anguish. Yet she forced a gay little laugh. “Aren’t we solemn sociologists! All we are concerned with is that he has won his way up, and there’s no one ever to drag him down or disgrace him; and–and you won’t be jealous if I set him up on a pedestal and bring incense to him on my bended knees.”
“Only you must give Thomas Herbert his share at the same time,” stipulated the mother.
The girl burst into prolonged and rather shrill laughter that passed the bounds of good breeding. Her emotion was so unrestrained that when she looked about at her surprised companion her face was flushed and her eyes were swimming with tears.
“Please, oh, do please forgive me!” she begged with a humility as immoderate as had been her laughter. “I–I can’t tell you why, but–”
“Say no more, my dear,” soothed Mrs. Blake. “You are merely a bit hysterical. Perhaps the excitement of our coming, after your months of lonely ranch life–”
“You’re so good!” sighed the girl. “Yes, it was due to–your coming. But now the worst is over. I’ll not shock you again with any more such outbursts.”
She smiled, and began to talk of other things, with somewhat unsteady but persistent gayety.
CHAPTER XIV
A DESCENT
When the party arrived at the ranch, the girl hostess took Mrs. Blake to rest in the clean, simply furnished room provided for the visitors. Blake, after carrying in their trunk single-handed, went to look around at the ranch buildings in company with Ashton.
On returning to the house, the two found Knowles and Gowan in the parlor with the ladies. Isobel had already introduced them to Mrs. Blake and also to her son. That young man was sprawled, face up, in the cowman’s big hands, crowing and valiantly clutching at his bristly mustache.
Gowan sat across from him, perfectly at ease in the presence of the city lady. But, with his characteristic lack of humor, he was unmoved by the laughable spectacle presented by his employer and the baby, and his manner was both reserved and watchful.
At sight of Blake, Isobel called to her father in feigned alarm: “Look out, Daddy! Better stop hazing that yearling. Here comes his sire.”
Knowles gave the baby back to its half-fearful mother, and rose to greet his guest with hospitable warmth: “Howdy, Mr. Blake! I’m downright glad to meet you. Hope you’ve found things comfortable and homelike.”
“Too much so,” asserted Blake, his eyes twinkling. “We came out expecting to rough-it.”
“Well, your lady won’t know the difference,” remarked Knowles.
“You’re quite mistaken, Daddy, really,” interposed his daughter. “She and Mr. Blake were wrecked in Africa and lived on roast leopards. We’ll have to feed them on mountain lions and bobcats.”
“If you mean that, Miss Chuckie,” put in Gowan, “I can get a bobcat in time for dinner tomorrow.”
The girl led the general outburst of laughter over this serious proposal. “Oh! oh! Kid! You’ll be the death of me!–Yet I sent you a joke-book last Christmas!”
“Couldn’t see anything funny in it,” replied the puncher. “I haven’t lost it, though. It came from you.”
To cover the girl’s blush at this blunt disclosure of sentiment, Mrs. Blake somewhat formally introduced her husband to the puncher. He shook Blake’s hand with like formality and politeness. But as their glances met, his gray eyes shone with the same cold suspicion with which he had regarded Ashton at their first meeting. Before that look the engineer’s friendly eyes hardened to disks of burnished steel, and his big fist released its cordial grip of the other’s small, bony hand. He gave back hostility for hostility with the readiness of a born fighter. Gowan was the first to look away.
The incident passed so swiftly that only Knowles observed the outflash of enmity. His words indicated that he had anticipated the puncher’s attitude. He addressed Blake seriously: “Kid has been with us ever since he was a youngster and has always made my interests his own. Chuckie has been telling us what you said about putting through any project you once started.”
Blake nodded. “Yes. That is why I suggested to Miss Knowles that she call off the agreement under which I came on this visit. We shall gladly pay board, and I’ll merely knock around; or, if you prefer, we’ll leave you and go back tomorrow morning.”
“No, Daddy, no! we can’t allow our guests to leave, when they’ve only just come!” protested Isobel.
“As for any talk about board,” added her father, “you ought to know better, Mr. Blake.”
“My apology!” admitted Blake. “I’ve been living in the East.”
“That explains,” agreed the cowman. “Even as far east as Denver–I’ve got a sister there; lives up beyond the Capitol. But I’ve talked with other men there from over this way. They all agree you might as well look for good cow pasture behind a sheep drive as for hospitality in a city. Sometimes you can get what you want, and all times you’re sure to get a lot of attention you don’t want–if you have money to spend.”
“That’s true. But about my going ahead here?” inquired Blake. “Say the word, and I put irrigation on the shelf throughout our visit.”
Knowles shook his head thoughtfully. “No, I reckon Chuckie is right. We’d best learn just how we stand.”
“What if I work out a practical project? There’s any amount of good land on your mesa. The lay of it and the altitude ought to make it ideal for fruit. If I see that the proposition is feasible, I shall be bound to put water on all of your range that I can. I am an engineer,–I cannot let good land and water go to waste.”
“The land isn’t going to waste,” replied Knowles. “It’s the best cattle range in this section, and it’s being used for the purpose Nature intended. As for the water, Chuckie has figured out there isn’t more than three thousand acre feet of flood waters that can be impounded off the watershed above us. That wouldn’t pay for building any kind of a dam.”
“And the devil himself couldn’t pump the water up out of Deep Cañon,” put in Gowan.
“The devil hasn’t much use for science,” said Blake. “It has almost put him out of business. So he is not apt to be well up on modern engineering.”
“Then you think you can do what the devil can’t?” demanded Knowles.
“I can try. Unless you wish to call off the deal, I shall ride around tomorrow and look over the country. Maybe that will be sufficient to show me there is no chance for irrigation, or, on the contrary, I may have to run levels and do some figuring.”
“Then perhaps you will know by tomorrow night?” exclaimed Isobel.
“Yes.”
“Well, that’s something,” said the cowman. “I’ll take you out first thing in the morning.–Lafe, show Mr. Blake the wash bench. There goes the first gong.”
When, a little later, all came together again at the supper table, nothing more was said about the vexed question of irrigation. Isobel had made no changes in her table arrangements other than to have a plate laid for Mrs. Blake beside her father’s and another for Blake beside her own.
The employés were too accustomed to Miss Chuckie to be embarrassed by the presence of another lady, and Blake put himself on familiar terms with them by his first remarks. If his wealthy high-bred wife was surprised to find herself seated at the same table with common workmen, she betrayed no resentment over the situation. Her perfect breeding was shown in the unaffected simplicity of her manner, which was precisely the same to the roughest man present as to her hostess.
Even had there been any indications of uncongeniality, they must have been overcome by the presence of Thomas Herbert Vincent Leslie Blake. The most unkempt, hard-bitten bachelor present gazed upon the majesty of babyhood with awed reverence and delight. The silent Jap interrupted his serving to fetch a queer rattle of ivory balls carved out one within the other. This he cleansed with soap, peroxide and hot water, in the presence of the honorable lady mother, before presenting it to her infant with much smiling and hissing insuckings of breath.
After supper all retired at an early hour, out of regard for the weariness of Mrs. Blake.
When she reappeared, late the next morning, she learned that Knowles, Gowan and her husband had ridden off together hours before. But Isobel and Ashton seemed to have nothing else to do than to entertain the mother and child. Mrs. Blake donned one of the girl’s divided skirts and took her first lesson in riding astride. There was no sidesaddle at the ranch, but there was a surefooted old cow pony too wise and spiritless for tricks, and therefore safe even for a less experienced horsewoman than was Mrs. Blake.
Knowles and Gowan and the engineer returned so late that they found all the others at the supper table. Blake’s freshly sunburnt face was cheerful. Gowan’s expression was as noncommittal as usual. But the cowman’s forehead was furrowed with unrelieved suspense.
“Oh, Mr. Blake!” exclaimed Isobel. “Don’t tell us your report is unfavorable.”
“Afraid I can’t say, as yet,” he replied. “We’ve covered the ground pretty thoroughly for miles along High Mesa and Deep Cañon. If the annual precipitation here is what I estimate it from what your father tells me, it would be possible to put in a drainage and reservoir system that would store four thousand acre feet. Except as an auxiliary system, however, it would cost too much to be practicable. As for Deep Cañon–” He turned to his wife. “Jenny, whatever else happens, I must get you up to see that cañon. It’s almost as grand and in some ways even more wonderful than the Cañon of the Colorado.”
“Then I must see it, by all means,” responded Mrs. Blake. “I shall soon be able to ride up to it, Isobel assures me.”
“Within a few days,” said the girl. “But, Mr. Blake, pardon me–How about the water in the cañon? You surely see no way to lift it out over the top of High Mesa?”
“I’m sorry, but I can’t even guess what can be done until I have run a line of levels and found the depth of the cañon. I tried to estimate it by dropping in rocks and timing them, but we couldn’t see them strike bottom.”
“A line of levels? Will it take you long?”
“Maybe a week; possibly more. If I had a transit as well as my level, it would save time. However, I can make out with the chain and compass I brought.”
“Mr. Blake is to start running his levels in the morning,” said Knowles. “Lafe, I’d like you to help him as his rodman, if you have no objections. As you’ve been an engineer, you can help him along faster than Kid.–You said one would do, Mr. Blake; but if you need more, take all the men you want. The sooner this thing is settled, the better it will suit me.”
“The sooner the better, Daddy!” agreed Isobel, “that is, if our guests promise to not hurry away.”
“We shall stay at least a month, if you wish us to,” said Mrs. Blake.
“Two months would be too short!–And the sooner we are over with this uncertainty–Lafe, you’ll do your utmost to help Mr. Blake, won’t you?”
“Yes, indeed; anything I can,” eagerly responded Ashton.
Gowan’s face darkened at sight of the smile with which the girl rewarded the tenderfoot. Yet instead of sulking, he joined in the evening’s entertainment of the guests with a zeal that agreeably surprised everyone. His guitar playing won genuine praise from the Blakes, though both were sophisticated and critical music lovers.
Somewhat earlier than usual he rose to go, with the excuse that he wished to consult Knowles about some business with the owner of the adjoining range. The cowman went out with him, and did not return. An hour later Ashton took reluctant leave of Isobel, and started for the bunkhouse. Half way across he was met by his employer, who stopped before him.
“Everybody turning in, Lafe?”
“Not at my suggestion, though,” replied Ashton.
“Reckon not. Mr. Blake and his lady are old friends of yours, I take it.”
“Mrs. Blake is,” stated Ashton, with a touch of his former arrogance. “We made mud-pies together, in a hundred thousand dollar dooryard.”
“Humph!” grunted Knowles. “And her husband?”
The darkness hid Ashton’s face, but his voice betrayed the sudden upwelling of his bitterness: “I never heard of him until he–until a little over three years ago. I wish to Heaven he hadn’t taken part in that bridge contest!”
“How’s that?” asked Knowles in a casual tone.
“Nothing–nothing!” Ashton hastened to disclaim. “You haven’t been talking with Miss Chuckie about me, have you, Mr. Knowles?”
“No. Why?”
“It was only that I explained to her how I came to be ruined–to lose my fortune. You see, the circumstances are such that I cannot very well say anything against Blake; yet he was the cause–it was owing to something he did that I lost all–everything–millions! Curse him!”
“You’ve appeared friendly enough towards him,” remarked Knowles.
“Yes, I–I promised Miss Chuckie to try to forget the past. But when I think of what I lost, all because of him–”
“So-o!” considered the cowman. “Maybe there’s more in what Kid says than I thought. He’s been cross-questioning Blake all day. You know how little Kid is given to gab. But from the time we started off he kept after Blake like he was cutting out steers at the round-up.”
“Blake isn’t the kind you could get to tell anything against himself,” asserted Ashton.
“Well, that may be. All his talk today struck me as being straightforward and outspoken. But Kid has been drawing inferences. He keeps hammering at it that Blake must be in thick with his father-in-law, and that all millionaires round-up their money in ways that would make a rustler go off and shoot himself.”
“Business is business,” replied Ashton with all his old cynicism. “I’ll not say that H. V. Leslie is crooked, but I never knew of his coming out of a deal second best.”
“Well, at any rate, it’s white of Blake to tell us beforehand what he intends to do if he sees a chance of a practical project.”
“Has he told you everything?” scoffed Ashton.
“How about his offer to drop the whole matter and not go into it at all?” rejoined Knowles.
Ashton hesitated to reply. For one thing, he was momentarily nonplused, and, for another, the Blakes had treated him as a gentleman. But a fresh upwelling of bitterness dulled his conscience and sharpened his wits.
“It may have been to throw you off your guard,” he said. “Blake is deep, and he has had old Leslie to coach him ever since he married Genevieve. He could have laid his plans,–looked over the ground, and found out just what are your rights here,–all without your suspecting him.”
