“No, Jess and the old man don’t know what I’m up to. I talked to them, some, after you left. But they can’t see beyond the gold in the river. They’ll be mad, I expect. But we couldn’t go on the way we planned. You can’t fight the government, boy. The old Eagle is a real scrapper.
“Yes, Nevada knows I intended to fly a white flag. She’s willing. She sees, as I do, that you were right—”
Peter’s neighbor on the other side claimed him then; an engineer who wanted further details of just how Peter had planned to move a mountain and cast it into the river. Two men across the table left off eating and their talk to lean forward and listen, and the man next Rawley was frankly stretching his hearing across and catching as much of Peter’s elucidation as he could. So Rawley was obliged to content himself with his pride in Uncle Peter, who was plainly making an extremely favorable impression on certain governors and high officials. And it amused him secretly to observe Peter’s complete unconcern over his growing popularity and his childlike interest in the commonplace incidents of the banquet.
An ambitious reporter slipped up behind Rawley and asked him for the love of Mike to arrange an interview with Cramer. His tone was imploring.
“New dope—and oh, boy, it’s a hummer!” he confided in Rawley’s ear. “You know we pencil pushers are just about goofy, trying to get a fresh punch into this thing. This man, Cramer, is worth a million dollars to the project, just for the publicity there is in him. A dam under our noses—oh, boy!”
“He won’t talk,” Rawley discouraged him. “Taciturn is the word that describes him.”
“Taciturn? With that talk he put over this evening? I’ve got every word of it—it’s priceless. Arabian Nights ain’t in it. And believe me, King, it’s going on the wires complete, the minute we get the word to release it.”
“Let’s see,” Rawley mused. “You’re an A. P. man, aren’t you? Well, I’ll try and run Peter into a corner for you—but I won’t promise he’ll give you anything.”
“You, then! King, you’re wise—I can see it in your left eyebrow. You’ve got some ripping dope on this, and I know it. Say, if you’ll—”
The toastmaster had risen and was rapping a spoon against his plate. The ambitious scribe and the human beehive subsided, but Rawley observed that the reporter had pulled up a chair and was preparing to camp at his elbow and Peter’s. Well, why not? he thought headily. A man like Peter could go far in the world, give him a chance. And this might be the chance. A desert man who spoke calmly of budgeting a million dollars, the savings of a lifetime for three men, to spend in secret upon a project over which the whole nation was arguing, and who could make a talk like that the first time he ever faced great men was, to say the least, unusual.