Under Handicap Part 35

"Close-lipped, eh? Close-lipped to the end! That's business--mighty good business, too. Oh, you'll do."

"Are you going to tell me what you mean? I tell you I haven't any time to waste, and I want to see your back, and see it moving, too. If you have anything to say, say it quick."

"That's the stuff, Conniston. Close-lipped to the end. But," and with a glance over his shoulder at Jimmie Kent, now out of hearing, and leaning a pudgy arm upon a pudgy knee as he smiled confidentially into Conniston's frowning face, "ain't it pretty close to the end now?"

"I give you my word, Swinnerton, that if you can't tell me straight out what you are driving at, off of this land you go."

The stern a.s.surance of Conniston's tone seemed to surprise Swinnerton.

"Come, come," he said, rather sharply. "What's the use of this shenanigan? Can't I see through clear window-gla.s.s? Am I a fool? Oh, I didn't guess, I didn't know that such a man as you were alive; I didn't so much as know your name until yesterday. But--know a man named Hapgood?" And his eyes twinkled again.

"Yes," bluntly. "What about him?"

"Oh, nothing much. Only he told me about you. And now what he didn't guess I know, Mr. William Conniston, Junior."

"And, pray, what might that be?"

"Want me to tell you, eh? Want to be sure that I know, do you? Want to see if Oliver Swinnerton is a fool, blind in both eyes? All right."

His voice dropped yet lower, and he blinked with cunning eyes as he finished. "You are up to the same game I am! You are going to slip the knife into John Crawford clean up to the hilt. You are going to make a bluff at getting work done until the last minute, and then you are going to have nothing done. You are going to throw him into my hands like I would throw a sick pup into a ditch."

"Am I?" asked Conniston, coolly, mastering the sudden desire to take this little fat man into his two hands and choke him. "You know a great deal about what I intend to do, Mr. Swinnerton. And now, if you are not through talking your infernal nonsense, I am through listening to it. There is room to turn right here. Understand?"

"But--" began Swinnerton, only to be cut short with:

"There are no buts about it!"

He stooped, seized the bit of one of Swinnerton's horses, and jerked it about into the road.

"Get out!"

"I tell you," yelled Swinnerton, "Conniston or no Conniston, you can't bluff me. Do you hear?"

Conniston made no reply as he jerked the horses farther around. When their heads were turned toward the way which Swinnerton had come he lifted his quirt high above his head. Oliver Swinnerton went suddenly white and raised his arm to protect his face. But only Conniston's laugh stung him as the quirt fell heavily across the horses' backs.

The buggy lurched, the horses leaped forward; Oliver Swinnerton's surprised torrent of curses was lost in the rattle of wheels, his red face obscured in the swirling dust.

"I wonder what he was driving at?" muttered Conniston as he watched the horses race down the road.

Jimmie Kent, reining his horse aside as Swinnerton swept by him, smiled and called, pleasantly:

"Good-by, Oliver. Seem to be in a hurry!"

CHAPTER XXII

Conniston and Kent, riding swiftly, side by side, overtook the wagons conveying the three hundred men to the Valley, and, pa.s.sing them, arrived at Brayley's camp before the men there had quit work for the day. Brayley was more than half expecting them, as Kent had telephoned to the office from Bolton to learn where Conniston was and had told Tommy Garton of his errand.

"An' now," proclaimed Brayley, with deep satisfaction, "we'll have the big ditch clean through Valley City an' the cross-ditches growin' real fast before a week's up."

"I've told the drivers to stop when they get here, Brayley. Some of the men have blankets with them. We can rush more from Mr. Crawford's store in Crawfordsville. We can make out as to food. Have you figured out what more horses, what further tools you'll need? That's good.

Send a man to the Half Moon right now with word to Rawhide Jones to rush us the horses. Put your new men to work in the morning if you have to make them dig ditch with shovels. Also send a hundred of them into Valley City as soon as it's daylight to begin the cross-ditches.

Let Ben go with them. He can get his instructions there from me or from Tommy Garton. How is everything going?"

Brayley reported that the work was running smoothly, that his foremen were as good men as he ever wanted to see, that he had no fault to find anywhere.

"An' this ol' ditch is sure growin', Con," he finished, with a sudden gleam of pride.

Conniston did not wait for the arrival of the wagons to ride on into Valley City. Kent he left behind him at the camp.

"I've a tremendous curiosity to see how you do this sort of thing,"

Kent confided to him, as he handed Conniston the message he wished sent from Valley City to Clayton & Paxton, of Denver. "I think that if Mr. Brayley has no objections and can spare me a blanket and some bread and coffee I'll roost here and watch the ditch grow in the morning."

Tommy Garton was still perched upon his high stool when Conniston came to the office.

"Just through, though," he said, as he climbed down and with the aid of his crutches piloted his new legs toward the door, grasping Conniston's hand warmly. "Good news, eh, Greek?"

"The best, Tommy. If we don't put this thing across now we ought to be kicked from one end of the desert to the other. By the way, I had a visit from Swinnerton this afternoon."

He told of what had pa.s.sed, and ended, thoughtfully:

"What do you suppose was his object, Tommy? Just wanted to get a peek at what we have done?"

Garton laughed softly.

"You poor old innocent. Don't you know what the little man was after?

Didn't he make it plain that he wanted you to double cross the old man? Didn't he make it plain that he was in a position to make it worth your while? If our scheme fails, don't you see that you can go to Swinnerton and demand and get a good job working for his scheme?

He has bought many a man, Greek. It is his theory that he can buy any man he wants to buy."

"And I let him get away without slapping his little red face,"

muttered Conniston, disgustedly.

He left Garton a few minutes later, promising to return and spend the night with him, to talk at length with him in the morning, and went down the street to the Crawford cottage. He knew that since Argyl's father had left for Denver Mrs. Ridley, the wife of the proprietor of the lunch-stand, had been staying with her. It was Mrs. Ridley who answered his knock.

"Miss Argyl ain't come back yet, Mr. Conniston," she told him. "She went out this mornin' an' ain't showed up since. I reckon, though, she'll be back real soon now. It's after supper-time already."

"Do you know where she went?"

"No, sir. She didn't say. Won't you come in an' wait for her?"

"No," he answered, after a moment. "I'd better not. If Miss Crawford has been all day in the saddle she will be tired. I'll drop in in the morning."

"Maybe that would be better," Mrs. Ridley nodded at him. "We're up early--breakfast at five. You might run in an' eat with us?"

Conniston promised to do so, and returned to the office, more than a little disappointed at not having seen Argyl, wondering whither her long ride could have taken her. Until late that night he and Garton talked, planned, and prepared for the work of to-morrow. It was barely five the next morning when he again knocked at the cottage door. Again Mrs. Ridley answered his knock.

"Am I too early?" Conniston smiled at her. "I noticed your smoke going. Is Miss Crawford up yet?"