Conniston was now with the Crawfords.  Presently he would leave them and return to the office to spend the night with Garton.  Bill Wallace evidently knew this, and was content to wait quietly until his man came.  Lonesome Pete had done his part, had ridden with all possible speed to Deep Creek, where he had supposed Conniston was.  The Lark had done his part.  The rest was up to Tommy Garton.  For he knew that with Conniston left to continue his work the work would be done.  He knew that Conniston had every detail now at his fingers’ ends.  He knew that if Swinnerton could succeed in this coup he might be able to put some further unexpected, some fatal obstacle in the way of the Great Work.  And that then, with Conniston out of it, it again would be “anybody’s game.”

Wallace was talking again about unimportant nothings, Garton was answering him in monosyllables and striving to see the way, to find out the thing which he must do.  It was plain that Conniston must be prevented from coming to the office to-night.  And when he saw the way before him he asked, carelessly: 

“You’ll stay with me to-night, Bill?”

“If you got the room, Tommy.”  He glanced about the little room.  “This bed ain’t workin’?”

“Conniston, our superintendent, will sleep there to-night.  He’ll be in in an hour or so.  But I’ve got blankets, and if you care to make a bed on the floor, there’s lots of room.”

“I’ll do it,” laughed the sheriff, stretching his great legs far out in front of him.  “It’ll do me good.  I been sleepin’ in a bed so many nights runnin’ lately I’ll be gettin’ soft.”

“All right.  And if you’ll pardon me a minute I want to telephone my assistant.  I’ve just got word of some work which must be ready by morning.  Not much rest on this job, Bill.”

He picked up the telephone again and called Billy Jordan.

“I wish you’d run around for a minute, Billy,” he said, his tone evincing none of the tremor which he felt in his heart.  “Bring the fifth and seventh sheets of those computations you took home with you.  Yes, the figures for the work we are to do at the spring.  Yes, you’d better hurry with them, as I want to look ’em over before morning.  There’s a ball-up somewhere.  So long, Billy.”

He had seen that Bill Wallace, whose business it was to be suspicious at all times and of all men, had regarded him with narrowed, shrewd eyes.

When Billy Jordan came in, ten minutes later, in no way surprised at the summons, since he had been called on similar errands many times, he found Bill Wallace telling a story and Tommy Garton chuckling appreciatively.