The young engineer hesitated slightly, his cheeks flushing at the cool
impudence of the other's direct question.
"I do not recall that any positive offer was made," he replied finally.
"At least, the question of payment was not broached."
"The old cuss proved more honest than I had supposed," and Farnham
dropped his clinched hand on the table. "Now, see here, Winston, I
propose giving you this thing right out from the shoulder. There is no
use beating around the bush. Those fellows have n't got so much as a
leg to stand on; their claim is no good, and never will be. They 're
simply making a bluff to wring some good money out of us, and I don't
want to see you get tangled up in that sort of a skin game. You 're
Bob Craig's friend, and therefore mine. Now, listen. There are two
fellows concerned in that 'Little Yankee' claim, this whiskey-soaked
Hicks and his partner, a big, red-headed, stuttering fool named
Brown--'Stutter' Brown, I believe they call him--and what have they got
between them? A damned hole in the ground, that's all. Oh, I know; I
've had them looked after from A to Z. I always handle my cards over
before I play. They had exactly two hundred dollars between them
deposited in a local bank here last week. That 's their total cash
capital. Yesterday one of my people managed to get down in their dinky
mine. It was a girl who did the job, but she 's a bright one, and that
fellow Brown proved dead easy when she once got her black eyes playing
on him. He threw up both hands and caved. Well, say, they 're down
less than fifty feet, and their vein actually is n't paying them
grub-stakes. That's the exact state of the case. Now, Winston, you do
n't propose to tie yourself professionally with that sort of a beggarly
outfit, do you?"
The younger man had been sitting motionless, his arm resting easily on
the back of the chair, his eyes slowly hardening as the other proceeded.
"I never before clearly understood that poverty was necessarily a
crime," he remarked thoughtfully, as Farnham came to a pause.
"Besides, I am not tied up with that special outfit. I have merely
agreed to examine into the matter."
"Of course, I understand that; but what's the use? You 'll only come
to exactly the same conclusion all the others have. Besides, I have
been especially authorized to offer you a thousand dollars simply to
drop the thing. It's worth that much to us just now to be let alone."
Winston's eyes half closed, his fingers gripping nervously into the
palm of his hand.
"It occurs to me you place my selling-out price at rather low figures,"
he said contemptuously.