don't guess I 'd be taking any risk on that!" he chuckled.
Fairchild reached for the currency eagerly. All but a hundred dollars
of it would go to Mother Howard,--for that debt must be paid off first.
And, that accomplished, denying himself the invitation of rest that his
bed held forth for him, he started out into town, apparently to loiter
about the streets and receive the congratulations of the towns-people,
but in reality to watch for one person and one alone,--Squint Rodaine!

He saw him late in the afternoon, shambling along, his eyes glaring,
his lips moving wordlessly, and he took up the trail. But it led only
to the office of the Silver Queen Development Company, where the
scar-faced man doubled at his desk, and, stuffing a cigar into his
mouth, chewed on it angrily. Instinctively Fairchild knew that the
greatest part of his mean temper was due to the strike in the Blue
Poppy; instinctively also he felt that Squint Rodaine had known of the
value all along, that now he was cursing himself for the failure of his
schemes to obtain possession of what had appeared until only a day
before to be nothing more than a disappointing, unlucky, ill-omened
hole in the ground. Fairchild resumed his loitering, but evening found
him near the Silver Queen office.

Squint Rodaine did not leave for dinner. The light burned long in the
little room, far past the usual closing time and until after the
picture-show crowds had come and gone, while the man of the blue-white
scar remained at his desk, staring at papers, making row after row of
figures, and while outside, facing the chill and the cold of winter,
Fairchild trod the opposite side of the street, careful that no one
caught the import of his steady, sentry-like pace, yet equally careful
that he did not get beyond a range of vision where he could watch the
gleam of light from the office of the Silver Queen. Anita's note had
told him little, yet had implied much. Something was fermenting in the
seething brain of Squint Rodaine, and if the past counted for anything,
it was something that concerned him.

An hour more, then Fairchild suddenly slunk into the shadows of a
doorway. Squint had snapped out the light and was locking the door. A
moment later he had passed him, his form bent, his shoulders hunched
forward, his lips muttering some unintelligible jargon. Fifty feet
more, then Fairchild stepped from the doorway and took up the trail.

It was not a hard one to fo