now?"

"It's for you to state your grievance."

Martin's face was inscrutable; one could not tell if he knew or not.
It was curious, but Jim could not take it for granted that he did know
and he told him about the broken wall.

"You imagine Davies paid the fellow to cut your underpinning?" the
contractor remarked.

"The thing's obvious."

"Then I don't understand why you came to me. There's not much
advantage in telling your antagonist he has hit you pretty hard."

"I wanted you to understand that you hadn't hit us hard enough. Your
blow was not a knockout, and we mean to guard against the next. We
have taken the contract and are going to put it over; I want you to get
that. You can't scare us off, and while I don't know if you can smash
us or not, it will certainly cost you high. Hadn't you better
calculate if the thing's worth while?"

"You were far North for some time," Martin said carelessly.

"I was," Jim admitted with surprise, for he could not see where the
remark led. "So were you."

Martin nodded. "A blamed hard country! Looks as if we were both
pretty tough, since we made good yonder, and I think I get your
proposition. Your idea is, we had better make terms than fight?"

"Something like that," Jim agreed.

"Very well," said Martin, who paused and smiled. "Now I'll tell you
something. I don't like your butting in, but I did not put Davies on
your track."

Jim looked hard at him, and although he was surprised did not doubt his
statement. "Then, I imagine he made the plan himself; wanted to show
you he was smart, but said nothing when it didn't work as smoothly as
he thought."

Martin was silent for a few moments and Jim imagined he was thinking
hard. Then he said, "It's possible; that's all."

"Perhaps the Cartner people sent him without telling you," Jim
suggested.

"Cartner made you a square offer, and you can't grumble much because
Probyn hired your men. Cartner is hard and I allow he'd like to break
you, but I haven't known him play a crooked game."

"Then I can't see a light at all."

"It's puzzling," Martin agreed.

Jim filled his pipe again and pondered. There was something strange
about his talking confidentially to a man he had thought an
unscrupulous antagonist, but he was persuaded that Martin was honest.
The latter seemed to be considering, for Jim saw his brows were knit
when the firelight touched his face. It had got dark, but the fire
leaped up now and the