“What’s the matter? did the old man say?”
“Nothing very definite; ‘party writes property not satisfactory,’ that’s all he says.”
“Hang it! I should think it looked good enough for ’em. Well,” he growled, “there’s so much hard work gone for nothing,” and thrusting his hands deeper into his pockets in his disgust, Morgan started on his way, but Haight detained him.
“Hold on a minute; say, Morgan, you don’t suppose that they caught on to our deal, do you? or that anybody put ’em onto it?”
“Who was there to put ’em onto anything?” asked Morgan.
“Oh, the confidential clerk, may be; he was on such good terms with Johnny Bull and the dude.”
Morgan shook his head. “He’s too much of a sucker for the company, and knows too well which side his bread is buttered, for business of that kind.”
“I don’t know about that,” said Haight, “he’s a dude and a tenderfoot himself, and likes to toady around with those eastern snobs; what else were they hob-nobbing with him for, if they didn’t think they could get some information out of him? I’ve got my own ideas on that subject and I’m going to make some investigations, and if I find I’m correct, he’ll find pretty quick where he will be; I’ve no use for him any way.” “I haven’t any more use for him than you have,” answered Morgan, “but he ain’t a very safe fellow to fool with now, I can tell you, and I don’t think you want to run up against him yourself.”
“I don’t know as I’ve said anything about running up against anybody,” said Haight, “that isn’t my style, but I’ll run him out of this country in one way or another, see if I don’t.”
“You think you’re pretty smooth,” Morgan called over his shoulder, as he started for the mills, “and if you want to undertake the job, all right; for my part, I don’t care to have much to do with him.”