During
the recital the expressions which chased across Elliot's face were as
varied as they were full of concern.

"Then I wasn't merely hysterical, was I?" he brooded after Steve had
finished. "Who--who did you say you thought might be behind the man
who would have had your plans, had it not been for Mr. Devereau?"

"I didn't say," replied Steve, and for the first time since his
entrance there was mirth in the unison of their laughter.

"It all brings us back to the point from which we started," the younger
man went on when they were grave again. "It's a plain enough issue, so
far as we are concerned. We've got to be at the mouth of that lower
valley by May. We're going to be! And as I see it, wasting time and
energy in--shall we call it sleuthing, Mr. Elliott?--won't help us
much. We thought that lack of time and the general nature of this
country were going to be handicap enough. But now your money is in and
I--I never did like to be beaten. Can't we let it stand like that, at
least until some one else makes a plainer move? We know the cards we
hold. If others care to sit in, perhaps we'll all come to a show-down,
next spring at Thirty Mile. It'll be easy enough to explain just how
we did it. Alibis based on veiled opposition wouldn't interest the
Reserve people much, if we left their timber there to rot. . . . And
I'm trying not to overlook any bets, Mr. Elliott."

Hastily the iron-gray man thrust his hat back from his forehead. He
came to his feet and crossed and clapped one hand upon Steve's shoulder.

"Next May!" he barked. "O'Mara, I'm glad you came down this morning.
I've been carrying a lot of those ideas around in my head until they
had become nightmarish. But I'm through now. You won't hear me croak
again. I staked what I had on you, months ago; I'd do it again this
minute. What's the odds, after all, who it is that's playing us to
lose. It's only the fact that somebody may be fighting us that needs
to occupy our attention. I'm done worrying, do you hear? But what
about those men who are quitting us? You are sure it would be unwise
to import labor? It's cheaper, you know."

Steve, too, had risen.

"We'd have the prettiest kind of a scrap on our hands, the first day we
tried to use them," he explained. "It would be dear enough before we
got through. I guess I'd better run right out and have a talk with
McLean. He knows these men even better than I do, and I'm almost one
of