CHAPTER XXX

BETH’S ONE EXPEDIENT

Bostwick had told Beth partial truths.  His journey had been hard.  His car had been twice disabled on the desert; Lawrence had been difficult to find; delays had confronted him at every turn, and not until midnight of the day before this had he come with his quarry to Goldite—­barely in time to save the situation, with the reservation opening less than forty-eight hours away.

He had not seen Glen, nor approached the town of Starlight closer than fifteen miles.  He had not yet expended Beth’s money, which only that morning had been practically placed at McCoppet’s disposal.  But having finally landed the Government surveyor in camp, he had achieved the first desirable end in the game they were playing, and matters were moving at last with a speed to suit the most exacting.

During the interim between Searle’s departure and return affairs had been a trifle complicated in another direction—­affairs that lay between the gambler and his friend, the lumberman, big Trimmer.

Trimmer had been paid one thousand dollars only of the sum agreed upon when he gave the name of Culver to the half-breed Indian, Cayuse.  He had since spent his money, demanded the balance due, and threatened McCoppet with exposure, only to be met with a counter threat of prison for life as the half-breed’s accomplice in the crime.  McCoppet meant to pay a portion of the creature’s price, but intended to get it from Bostwick.  Indeed, to-day he had the money, but was far too much engrossed with Lawrence to give the lumberman a thought.

Trimmer, waxing greedy through the ease with which he had blackmailed McCoppet, had developed a cunning of his own.  Convinced that the gambler was accustomed to incubating plans in his private office, the lumberman made shift to excavate a hole beneath the floor of that particular den of privacy, and, after having spent half a night in vain, in this place of concealment, was at last being duly rewarded as he listened to McCoppet and Lawrence.

With his ear to a knot-hole he gathered in everything essential to a knowledge of the plot.  He became aware that Lawrence “fell” for twenty thousand dollars; he overheard the details of the “survey” about to be made; but to save his very life he could not have fathomed the means that were about to be employed to “jump” the mining property belonging to Van Buren and his partners.

Equipped with this latest means of squeezing McCoppet, the creature emerged from his hole in time to meet the gambler at the bar, during a moment of Bostwick’s temporary absence.

“Opal,” he said significantly, “I need to see you fer a minute.  It won’t be no healthier to refuse me now than it was the first time I come.”

The gambler looked at him coldly.  “I haven’t got time to talk now, Larry, but some of your money is at your order any time you want it, in gold, or poker chips, or gin.”