at going.
But finding it out for himself had not made the fact any pleasanter to
Wickersham.

"It should be clear enough without explanation," he enunciated each
word nicely, "if you want that road they are building."

Allison glanced up, surprised at the tone employed.

"Meaning of course I do," he mused. "And yet--and yet, I don't know!"

Fear burned in the tall, thin man's eyes that night--fear that made his
hatred for the absent man who was teaching him fear anything but a
pretty thing to watch.

"I've tried to buy off their men." He was holding himself with an
effort that made him tremble. "I've held up their supplies on every
track that we control, but they've had the luck with them. They've
made up lost time by working day and night. I've----"

"You've set a drunken fool to steal his plans," drawled the other with
deadly sarcasm, "like a second-rate, one-night-stand villain. Don't
forget to mention that, too!"

In many ways it resembled an earlier conference which they had shared
together; in many points it differed from it. For if Allison had
goaded the other man, on that former occasion, largely from a malicious
delight in stirring him to verbal violence, such a thought was farthest
from his mind now. Allison was talking from a new angle. If a turned
page was a turned page to him, at least his memory was good. His
lounging body shifted a little.

"Archie, do you remember what I told you about that woods-rat, as you
called him once? Did I tell you that he would fight? Well, listen and
listen closely while I repeat it for you. He hasn't even warmed to it
yet!"

Wickersham went yellow at that, but his icy self-control held firm. He
did not break into vituperation this night; he smiled, though his voice
was only a whisper.

"Men have dropped out of sight before now, in those woods," he husked.
"I'll win, or I'll see that he lies and rots in one of his own
sink-holes."

A big voice is a wonderful weapon at times. Allison's booming bass
made Wickersham's threat seem only mean and hollow when the heavy man
leaped to his feet and shook a finger under that high-bridged nose.

"No you won't!" he snapped. "No you won't! And if I didn't know,
after hearing you talk, that you haven't stuff enough in you to be
dangerous, I'd fix you so you'd be in no condition to bushwhack anybody
for the next six months. I'm in a bad mood to-night. Drop out of
sight, eh? You'll play this fair--fair at lea