ment of subject and
object was evidently advised; Madeira showed that it was by repeating,
"ever since _I_ got _you_ interested, I've been trying to get Grierson
interested. We couldn't move hand or foot without him, you know that.
The land is his, you know, even though you are the heir apparent, and
there was no use trying to do anything with the land without him. I had
got you into it without much trouble,"--Madeira paused just long enough
to take the cigar that Steering offered him. (Steering could always see
better through smoke.) "Yes, I had got you!" cried Madeira, biting off
the end of the cigar with a sharp snap of his teeth, "and having got
you, the next thing was to get Grierson. Well, I got him, got him since
you left New York." He chuckled his spill-over chuckle again, swung
around to his desk and took from one of its pigeon-holes an envelope
addressed to him in a deep-gouging hand. The expression of geniality
lingered about the wings of his nose and the corners of his mouth, as
though it had been moulded there by long habit, but his eyes narrowed
and the play of light from them was by now like the whisk of a sharp
knife through the air. "You know I chased that old fellow all over
Colorado with my letters about my scheme to open up the Tigmores, until
I got him mad," he said, holding the letter up to say it, as though the
contents would be illumined by his saying it. Then he handed it to
Steering, who took it from its cover, flapped it open, and read:

"DEAR CRIT:

"Use this power of attorney to open up hell if you want to, but
don't you write to me.

"Your obedient servant,

"B. GRIERSON."

It was the sort of letter to make a man laugh, and Steering laughed.
Then the phrase "open up hell" caught his eye again, like a sign of
sinister warning.

"I've never been able to understand," he began with a questioning
inflection in his voice, "what's the trouble with the scion of the house
of Grierson. Why is he so indifferent to a project for the development
of his property that may mean a million to him?"

"Aw, you know he's cracked!" replied Madeira quickly and harshly.

"No, I don't know him at all, you will remember. Never saw him, never
had a line from him."

"Well, he's cracked. He fooled around here in the Tigmores for twenty
years hunting silver, God bless you! Spent everything he had riding that
hobby, then got another hu