l stand the shock like a man."

"I think you've both got Gray all wrong," said McWade. "He's too smart
to be crooked."

This was a statement so absurd that Mallow proceeded to riddle it. It
was, upon its face, a contradiction, for none but smart men could be
crooked, and the laws of logic proved the converse to be equally true.

Stoner sat in frowning silence while the argument raged, but he broke
in finally: "I've always wanted to pull a real salting job, just to
show how easy it is to gyp the cagy ones--not an oil-can job like this,
but something big. This looks like the piscological moment."

"Lay off, I tell you!" McWade cried. "We're a legitimate firm,' solid
as Gibraltar and safe as a church.' That's our motto, and we've got to
live up to it. I came into Wichita on the roof of a Pullman; I'm going
out in a drawing-room. Me and sin are strangers."

"Nothing sinful about my idea, Mac. One fall or two won't break Nelson;
we've got to spill him hard. If we can pick up a few pennies ourselves
in the process, why, that's legitimate. The dealer is entitled to his
percentage, ain't he? Now listen. Everybody's getting set for a big
play over in Arkansas, as you know--salting away cheap acreage and
waiting for some of the wildcats to come in. Well, last year I had a
tool dresser from up there; nice boy, but he got pneumonia and it
turned into the 'con,' so I took him home. He's back on his farm now,
coughing his life away and doing a little bootleggin' to keep body and
cough together. He's got a big place, but it's all run down and so poor
you couldn't raise a dust on it with a bellows. It would be a Christian
act to help him sell that goat pasture for enough to go to some nice
warm country where he'd get well and they couldn't extradite him."

"Of course, if you've got a scheme that is perfectly safe," McWade
ventured, charitably, "and our bit was worth it--"

"I been thinking we might help the boy sell that farm to Nelson."

"How?"

Mallow, too, was curious. "Nelson's lungs are healthy; he wouldn't
cough a nickel unless the place had oil on it."

"I meant to tell you it's got oil on it. Best indications I ever saw.
There's a drinking well, only the water ain't fit to drink till you
skim off the 'rainbow.' Then there's a wonderful seepage into the
creek. You can see the oil oozing out from under the bank, in one
place. Certainly is pretty."

Stoner's hearers were intent; they exchanged puzzled glances.

Mallo