“I sent a scraper up from the station ahead of me,” said Banks.  “And, driver, we may as well run up the switchback to the house.  It’s level there, with room to turn.  And it will give you the chance to see the whole layout below,” he went on, explaining to Morganstein.  “The property on this side the mountain belongs to my wife, but we ain’t living here yet; we are stopping with folks down by the station.  Likely we’ll move, soon’s I get back from my trip.  That is, if the boys get busy.  Seem’s if I have to keep after some of them all the time.  To-day it’s the lathers.  I’ve got to stop, going through Weatherbee, to tell my wife to have an eye on them.  They get paid by the bundle, and they told me this morning lathe would run short before they was through.  I knew I had ordered an extra hundred on the architect’s figgers, but I didn’t say anything.  Just prospected ’round and came back unexpected, and caught one of them red-handed.  He was tucking a bunch between the ceiling and the upper floor, without even cutting the string.  I made them rip off the lathe, and there they were stored thick, a full bundle to ’bout every three they’d nailed on.”

“That’s the way,” commented Morganstein, “every man of ’em will do you, if he sees a chance.  Mrs. Banks will have to keep both eyes open, if you are leaving it to her.  But it will be compensation to her, I guess, driving those bays over from the station every day.  Handsomest team in Washington.  I’ll bet,” and he turned his narrow eyes suddenly on Banks, “Lighter held you up for all they were worth.”

“The team belongs to Hollis Tisdale,” answered Banks.  “He bought them at Kittitas last fall and drove them through.  They were in the valley when I came, and he asked me to look after them while he was east.  My wife exercises them.  She understands horses, my, yes.  One of those colts had a mean trick of snapping at you if you touched the bit, but she cured him complete.  And she took such a shine to that team I thought likely they’d do for a Christmas present.  Tisdale told me in the fall if I had a good chance, to sell, so I wrote and made him an offer.  But his answer never came till last night.  A nurse at the hospital in Washington wrote for him; he had been laid up with a case of blood-poison all winter, and it started from a nip that blame’ colt gave him on the trip from Kittitas.  He refused my price because, seeing’s the team wasn’t safe for a full-sized man to drive, it went against his conscience to let them go to a lady.”

“He was right,” said Morganstein.  “George, that was a lucky escape.  I was within an ace of buying that team myself.  But I put down Tisdale’s sickness to frostbite; often goes that way with a man in the north.”

“Sure; it does.”  Banks paused, while his glance fell to the empty fingers of his right glove.  “But that colt, Nip, gets the credit this time.  It happened while Hollis was trying to lead him over a break in the road.  He said it didn’t amount to anything, the night I saw him before he left Seattle, but he had the hand bandaged, and I’d ought to have known it was giving him trouble.”