It was with some difficulty that Hazel contrived to pacify her father, but at last she succeeded in persuading him to partake of the pleasant meal provided by Hip-Lee.

Gordon was glad when at last they all sat down. The appetizing smell of coffee, the delicious plates of cold meats, the glass dishes of preserves, and steaming hot scones, all these things appealed to the accumulated appetite consequent upon his ride.

"Now tell us all about it," Hazel demanded, when the meal was well under way.

Old Mallinsbee, still with the absurd eye-shade upon his forehead, had recovered his humor, and he poured out his story in characteristic fashion.

"Wall," he said, "maybe I was hot when you come up. He'd been gone best part of an hour. During that time I'd been sort of bankin' the furnaces. Gordon Van Henslaer, my boy, I hate meanness worse 'n any devil hated holy water. Ther's all sorts of meanness in this world, and ther' ain't no other word to describe it. Killing can be just every sort of thing from justifiable homicide down to stringin' up some black scallywag by the neck for doin' the same things white folks do an' get off with a caution. The feller that steals ain't always to blame. As often as not we need to blame the general community. Lyin's mostly a disease, an' when it ain't I guess it's a sort of aggravated form of commercial enterprise, or the budding of a great newspaper faculty. You can find excuse, or other name, fer most every crime of human nature--'cept meanness. David Slosson is just the chief ancestor of all meanness, an' when I say that, why--it's some talk. He's here to put the railroad in on the land scoop, and, in that respect, I guess he's all I could have expected. We were making elegant talk. Or, I guess, he was mostly. He said his chiefs had sent him up to see how the general public could best be served by his road with regard to this coal boom, and I told him I was dead sure that railroads never failed in their service of the public. I pointed out I had always observed it.

"That talk of mine seemed to open up the road for things, and I handed him a good cigar and pushed a highball his way. Then he made a big music of railroads in general, and talked so pious that it set me yearnin' for my bed. Then I got wide awake. Say, I ain't done a heap in chapel goin' recently, but I've sort of got hazy recollections of sitting around dozing, while the preacher doped a lot of elegant hot air about things which kind of upset your notions of life generally.

Then I seem to recollect getting a sack pushed into my face, and I got visions of the terrible scare of its coming, and the kind of nervous chase for that quarter that I could have sworn I'd set ready in my pocket for such an emergency. That's how I felt--nervous. He was talkin' prices of plots.

"Wal, I got easy after awhile, and we fixed things elegant. The railroad was to get a dandy bunch of plots at bedrock prices, if they built the depot right here at Buffalo Point. And that feller was quick to see that I was out for the interests of the public, and to make things easy for the railroad. So he talked pretty. Then--then he hooked me a 'right.' He asked me plumb out how he stood. I was ready for him. I said that nothing would suit me better than he should come in the same way with the railroad." He shook his head regretfully.

"That man hadn't the conscience of a louse. He was yearning for twenty town plots, in best positions, five of 'em being corner plots, in the commercial area for--nix! I was feeling as amiable as a she wild-cat, and I told him there was nothing doing that way. He said he'd hoped better from my public-spirited remarks. I assured him my public spirit hadn't changed a cent. He said he was sure it hadn't, and was astonished what a strong public spirit was shown around the whole of Snake's Fall. He said that the old town was just the same as Buffalo Point. They were most anxious to help the railroad out, too. Which, seeing the depot--the old depot--was already standing there, made it a cinch for the railroad. They were dead anxious to save the railroad trouble and expense. I pushed another highball at him, but he guessed he hadn't a thirst any more, and one cigar was all he ever smoked in an afternoon. Then he oozed off, and I was glad. I guess homicide has its drawbacks."

"High 'graft,'" said Gordon.

"Maybe it's 'high,'" said Mallinsbee, with a smile in which there was no mirth. "Guess I wouldn't spell it that way myself. There's just one thing certain: if my side of the game has to go plumb to hell David Slosson don't get his graft the way _he_ wants it. And that's what you and me are up against."

"And we'll beat him."

"We got to."

"You and----"

"You," cried Mallinsbee, thrusting out a hand towards him across the table.

The two men gripped. Gordon had joined the conspirators.

CHAPTER X

GORDON MAKES HIS BID FOR FORTUNE

Gordon's new address was Buffalo Point, and, entering upon his duties, he felt like some Napoleon of finance about to embark upon a market-breaking scheme in which the brilliancy of his manipulations were to shine forth for the illumination of the pages of history, yet to be written.

That was how he felt. Those were the feelings of the moment. Later the burden of his responsibilities obscured the Napoleonic image, and raised up in his mind a thought as to the wisdom of butting one's head against a brick wall.

However, for the time at least the joy of responsibility was considerable, and the greater joy of the companionship and trust of his new friends was something which inspired him to great efforts.

He studied the affairs of Buffalo Point with a care for detail and an assiduity which quickly became the surprise and delight of Silas Mallinsbee. He went over every foot of the new township as laid out by a well-known firm of town planners from New York under Mallinsbee's orders and under State supervision. He spent one entire day in studying the drawn plans, and, finally, having committed all the details to memory, he felt himself equipped to devote his whole attention to the cajoling of the railroad which was the sum and substance of their combined efforts.

In the first week of his occupation he learned many things which had been obscure. He took the story of Mallinsbee's operations and examined it closely, discovering in the process that he possessed a faculty for clear reasoning altogether surprising. Furthermore, he discovered that Mallinsbee, though possibly unpracticed in the work of a big financial undertaking, yet possessed all, and more, of the shrewdness he had vaguely suspected.

One of the first efforts of the old man had been to secure the interest of many of the chief traders in the old township of Snake's Fall. Also that of the Bude and Sideley Coal Company. This had been done very simply but effectively. After having marked off the town sites he required for himself he had then offered, and sold, to pretty well every landowner in Snake's Fall a certain allotment of sites at a merely nominal fee. This, as the man himself declared in the course of his story, left Snake's Fall pretty well "not carin' a whoop which way the old cat jumped." The "cat" in this instance being the railroad.

In this way direct and active opposition from the landholders of Snake's Fall was minimized. As he explained, it was "graft," but he felt that it was justifiable. This left him with the good will of the citizens and free to act on broader lines. Then he began to pull all the wires he could command with the coal people, who regarded him in the friendliest spirit. However, there was difficulty here, though the difficulty was not insurmountable. Their engineers were at work already on the plans to be put into almost immediate operation for the construction of a private track to link up the coalfields with Snake's Fall. With them it was a question of time. They could not afford delay, and the exploitation of the new township would mean delay for them, although they admitted they would be relieved of a great expense from its proximity to their workings.

Mallinsbee, after stupendous efforts, and careful negotiations of the right kind, finally effected a compromise. He was given three months, of which already one week had elapsed, in which to obtain the definite assurance that the railroad would accept Buffalo Point as the new city.

In the meantime the coal people's construction would be held up, and they would assist him with all the influence they could command in persuading the railroad. This concession was not unaided by considerable graft, and the graft took the form of an agreement that Mallinsbee, out of his own pocket, would construct them a coal depot and yards in conjunction with the railroad, and hand them the titles of the land necessary for it.

He had just returned from the east, where he had been in consultation with the Bude and Sideley people, and with whom he had ratified this agreement, and, at the same time, the railroad had been induced to move in the matter. All along he had triumphed through the agency of graft, and the crowning point of his triumph had been demonstrated in the arrival at Snake's Fall of Mr. David Slosson.

Gordon's first impressions of all these things was that Silas Mallinsbee had contrived with considerable skill, and that all was more or less plain sailing. All that remained was to go on, with the grafting hand thrust ready into the pocket for all eventualities, and he found himself smiling at the thought of his father, and how surely his own theories of financial undertakings were working out.

That was his first impression. But it only lasted until he became aware of those subtleties of human nature lying behind human effort and intention. He had reckoned without David Slosson, and, more than all, he had reckoned without Silas Mallinsbee himself.

During that first week of his new work David Slosson had called at the office twice. Once he had encountered only Gordon, and Hazel had arrived during the visit. The second time he had had another interview with Silas Mallinsbee. It was immediately after that interview that Gordon gained some appreciation of the point where human psychology stepped into the arena of commercial competition.

The revelation came in Silas Mallinsbee's own statement of the result of that interview.

"Gordon, my boy," he said. He had quickly abandoned the use of Gordon's formal address. "If that feller gets around here too frequent with his blackmail, I'm going to kill him."

Then he thrust the patch over his left eye high up on to his forehead, and Gordon realized the angry light shining in the man's eyes. With one eye covered his face had almost been expressionless. His evident surprise at this realization did not fail to attract the rancher's attention.

His angry eyes softened to a smile of amusement.

"You're wonderin' 'bout that patch?" he went on. "Wal, when I get up against a feller who's brighter than I am in a deal, I don't figure to take chances. Ever played 'draw' with a one-eyed man? No? Wal, I did--once. An' I ain't recovered from all he taught me yet. He taught me that two eyes can just about give away double as much as one.

Which, in financial dealings, is quite a piece. I guess that patch has saved me quite a few dollars in its time. An' it makes me kind of sore to think I didn't meet that one-eyed 'sharp' earlier in life."

Gordon nodded as he folded up the plan of the town lying on his desk.

"You were using it on--Mr. David Slosson. Say, is he smart, or is he just a--crook?"

Mallinsbee rose from his chair and moved cumbersomely over to the doorway, and stood with his back turned, gazing out.

"I ain't fixed him that way--yet. He's sure a crook, anyway. That's a cinch. 'Bout the other we'll know later. Say, I'm open to graft anybody on this thing--reasonably. It's part of the game. It's more.

It's the game itself. But I don't submit to blackmail."

"There doesn't seem much difference," said Gordon, drawing some letter-paper towards him, and preparing to write.

The other remained where he was, moodily gazing out at the hills where his beloved ranch lay.

"You'd think not--but there is," Mallinsbee went on. "You graft an organization when you're needin' something from them which they ain't under obligation to themselves to do. That's buying and selling, and, as things go, there ain't much kick coming. But when you've done that, and their favor's fixed right, it's blackmail if their servants come along and refuse to carry out their work if you don't pay _their_ price. This feller Slosson is a servant of the railroad. I'm ready to graft all they need. He's out for blackmail. That feller wants to be paid something for nothing. He don't do a thing for us. He's got to do the work I'm paying the railroad for. See? Say, Gordon, boy, happen what likes I won't do it. That feller don't make one cent out of me. I'm on the buck, an' I don't care a curse."

Mallinsbee had turned about to deliver his irrevocable decision, and, as Gordon met the man's serious, obstinate expression, he realized something of the psychology lying behind a big financial transaction.

If Slosson had been a man of reasonable grafting disposition, if he had been a pleasant, amiable personality, if he had been a--man, if Silas Mallinsbee had been used to affairs such as his father dealt in--well--. But it was useless to speculate further. He only saw a troublous situation growing up for him to contend with.

"We've got to get him playing our game," he hazarded.

"That we'll never do. We're playing a straight bid for a win. He couldn't play a straight bid for anything."

"No." There was a great cordiality in Gordon's negative.

"It's us who've got to play him--someways."