“Goodloe told me the wreck-wagons were here, and I thought you would probably be along,” the buckboard driver was saying.  “How are things shaping up?  I haven’t cared to risk the wires since Bigsby leaked on us.”

Gridley put a foot on the hub of the buckboard wheel and began to whittle a match with a penknife that was as keen as a razor.

“The new chum is in the saddle; look over your shoulder to the left and you’ll see him sitting on a cross-tie beside McCloskey,” he said.

“I’ve seen him before.  He was over the road last week, and I happened to be in Goodloe’s office at Little Butte when he got off to look around,” was the curt rejoinder.  “But that doesn’t help any.  What do you know?”

“He is a gentleman,” said Gridley slowly.

“Oh, the devil! what do I care about——­”

“And a scholar,” the master-mechanic went on imperturbably.

The buckboard driver’s black eyes snapped.  “Can you add the rest of it—­’and he isn’t very bright’?”

“No,” was the sober reply.

“Well, what are we up against?”

Gridley snapped the penknife shut and began to chew the sharpened end of the match.

“Your pop-valve is set too light; you blow off too easily, Flemister,” he commented.  “So far we—­or rather you—­are up against nothing worse than the old proposition.  Lidgerwood is going to try to make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear, beginning with the pay-roll contingent.  If I have sized him up right, he’ll be kept busy; too busy to remember your name—­or mine.”

“What do you mean? in just so many words.”

“Nothing more than I have said.  Mr. Lidgerwood is a gentleman and a scholar.”

“Ha!” said the man in the buckboard seat.  “I believe I’m catching on, after so long a time.  You mean he hasn’t the sand.”

Gridley neither denied nor affirmed.  He had taken out his penknife again and was resharpening the match.

“Hallock is the man to look to,” he said.  “If we could get him interested ...”

“That’s up to you, damn it; I’ve told you a hundred times that I can’t touch him!”

“I know; he doesn’t seem to love you very much.  The last time I talked to him he mentioned something about shooting you off-hand, but I guess he didn’t mean, it.  You’ve got to interest him in some way, Flemister.”

“Perhaps you can tell me how,” was the sarcastic retort.

“I think perhaps I can, now.  Do you remember anything about the sky-rocketing finish of the Mesa Building and Loan Association, or is that too much of a back number for a busy man like you?”

“I remember it,” said Flemister.

“Hallock was the treasurer,” put in Gridley smoothly.

“Yes, but——­”

“Wait a minute.  A treasurer is supposed to treasure something, isn’t he? 
There are possibly twenty-five or thirty men still left in the Red Butte
Western service who have never wholly quit trying to find out why
Hallock, the treasurer, failed so signally to treasure anything.”