“So Hicks admitted,” interposed the younger man gravely, “although he put it in rather different form.  He said it was because you had the money, and your crowd bought them all up.”

“Oh, he did, did he?” and the gambler laughed outright.  “Well, that sort of a job would n’t be very costly—­to outbid that measly outfit.  It would be a sight cheaper than litigation, I reckon.  What did he offer you, by the way?”

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.