Flowing Gold Part 16

McWade frowned his disapproval. "Something ought to be done to stop those crooks or they'll kill us legitimate promoters. You can't sting a crowd too often in the same spot."

There came a knock at the door, and in answer to an invitation to enter it opened. The next instant both McWade and Stoner sat erect in their chairs, with eyes alert and questioning, for at sight of the stranger Mallow had leaped to his feet with a smothered exclamation, and now stood with his back to the desk and with his head outthrust in a peculiar att.i.tude of strained intensity.

CHAPTER X

"Well, well, Mallow!" The caller's face broke into an engaging smile as he crossed the threshold. "Still wearing dark gla.s.ses, eh? I'm afraid you didn't heed my instructions."

Mallow spoke huskily, "What the h.e.l.l you doing here?"

"Following the excitement, merely. I shall open an office and spend a good deal of my time in Wichita Falls. I hoped I'd find you here, for this morning I heard you describe your invention and--admiration overcame me. I felt constrained to congratulate you upon your scientific attainments. Marvelous, my dear Doctor! Or is it Professor Mallow?" The speaker laughed heartily. "Won't you introduce me to these--let us say magnetic forces of nature that you have discovered?"

He indicated the two partners.

"What do you want?" Mallow barked.

"Momentary agitation has robbed our Professor of his habitual politeness--a not unusual phenomenon of the preoccupied scientific mind." These words were directed at McWade and Stoner. "My name is Gray. Perhaps Doctor Mallow has made mention of me."

"So you're the lad that threw pepper in his eyes?" Brick Stoner stared at the newcomer with undisguised interest. He rose, as did McWade.

"I'll say we've heard of you. Your name's getting as common as safety-razor blades. You've been cleaning up, haven't you?"

"Um-m, moderately." Calvin Gray shook hands with the promoters, then to the agitated Mallow, who still peered at him apprehensively, he said: "Come, come! Let down your hammer! Uncoil!"

"Listen, you!" the other burst forth. "I beat that thing out. I'm clean and I don't intend to go back. You're a strong guy and you got a bunch of kale, and you're a getter, but the taller they come the harder they fall. You can be had." The speaker was desperate; his face was flushed with anger, the tone of his voice was defiant and threatening.

Gray helped himself to a chair, crossed his legs, and lit a cigar.

McWade and Stoner neither moved nor spoke.

"My dear Mallow, you wrong me." In the newcomer's voice there was no longer any mockery. "I gave you credit for more intelligence. We played our little farce and it is done--the episode is closed, so far as I am concerned. I supposed you understood that much. I helped you and I came here to enlist your help."

"You helped _me_?" Mallow showed his teeth in a snarl.

"Precisely. Think a moment. Was it not odd that I failed to appear against you? That the case was never pressed, the prosecution dropped?"

"I s'pose you were afraid to go through. Thought I'd get you."

Gray shook his head impatiently. "Afraid? Of you? Oh, Mallow! Had I feared your majestic wrath, do you think I would have arranged for that doctor to see you every day? And paid his bill? Who, pray, sent in those good things for you to eat?"

There was a pause.

"Did you?"

"I did."

Again there was silence.

"Why?"

"For one thing, I was sorry for you. I really was. I had caused you and Tony a great deal of suffering, and I cannot bring myself to inflict actual suffering upon anyone without doing my best to alleviate it.

Then again, I had nothing against you personally. We merely clashed in the course of--business." Mallow allowed himself to sink back upon the desk; he turned his dark goggles upon his friends in a blind stare of bewilderment.

"Well, I'll be d.a.m.ned!" he said, finally.

"Mallow thought _we_ had helped to spring him." It was McWade speaking.

"That's why he beat it up here and that's how we happened to put him to work."

"I don't get you yet," the man in gla.s.ses muttered. "I can't understand why--"

"What's the odds why he done it?" Stoner inquired, sharply. "Any man that can squirt my eyes full of tobasco, and me with a six gun on him, is all right. And him with a bottle of milk duly made and provided!"

The field member of the firm slapped his thigh and laughed loudly.

"Then to forget the whole fracas and shake hands on it! That's handsome! Mr. Gray, I'm here to say there's a lot of boys going to lay off you like you was a cactus."

The object of this commendation was pleased. "Grat.i.tude is rare," he murmured. "I thank you. Now then, I was thinking of making friend Mallow a business proposition, but--perhaps I can interest you, also, in doing something for me. I'll pay well."

"We're live ones," Stoner a.s.serted.

"It is business of a confidential nature."

"All the talking we do is on the street. We're promoting wildcats, but I guess we know as much about the good wells as the big companies themselves, and when it comes to actual drilling, I've forgotten more than all these boll weevils will ever learn. What can we do for you?"

"For one thing, I wish to hire the brightest oil scout in the district, but I don't want him, nor anyone else, for the time being, to suspect that he's working for me. I will double his salary to watch one operator. Perhaps he could appear to be in your employ? Furthermore, I intend to do considerable secret buying and selling, and I will need several dummies--moral character unimportant. All I insist upon is absolute loyalty and obedience to my orders."

During the silence that followed, Gray felt the three men staring at him curiously.

"You're after big game, I take it?" McWade inquired, mildly.

"The biggest in these woods."

"One man, did you say?"

"One man."

"Some--grudge, perhaps?"

"Perhaps."

"A yacht is too expensive for most men, but they don't burn money as fast as a grudge."

"This one will take his last dollar--or mine."

"We're a legitimate firm, you know--"

Gray's eyes twinkled as he exclaimed: "Exactly! If I have caused you to infer that I shall employ anything except legitimate means to effect my purpose, it is my error. At the same time, my proposition is not one that I could well afford to take to the ordinary, conservative type of broker. Now then, how about you, Mallow? Would you care to work for me?"

The latter's pale face broke into a grin. "I am working for you," he declared. "I've been on your pay roll now for five minutes. What's more, if it'll save money to croak this certain party and be done with it, why, maybe that can be arranged, too. My new wiggle stick may not find oil every crack, but I bet I can make it point to half a dozen men who--"

Gray lifted an admonitory hand. "Patience! It may come to something like that, but I intend to break him first. Can I arrive at terms with you gentlemen?"

"Write your own ticket," McWade declared, and Mr. Stoner echoed this statement with enthusiasm.