He indicated a table near the rear of the barroom, visible through an archway that opened from the room in which a clerk with a thin, narrow face and an alert eye presided at a rough desk.
"That's Maison—Tom Maison, Okar's banker. They tell me he'd skin his grandmother if he thought he could make a dollar out of the deal." Owen grinned. "He's the man you're figuring to borrow money from—to build your dam."
"I'll talk with him tomorrow," said Sanderson.
In their room Sanderson removed some of the stains of travel. Then, telling Owen he would see him at dusk, he went out into the street.
Okar was buzzing with life and humming with activity when Sanderson started down the board walk. In Okar was typified the spirit of the West that was to be—the intense hustle and movement that were to make the town as large and as powerful as many of its sister cities.
Threading his way through the crowd on the board walk, Sanderson collided with a man. He grinned, not looking at the other, apologized, and was proceeding on his way, when he chanced to look toward the doorway of the building he was passing.
Alva Dale was standing just inside the doorway, watching him, and as Sanderson's gaze met his Dale grinned sneeringly.
Sanderson's lips twitched with contempt. His own smile matched Dale's in the quality of its hostility.
Sanderson was about to pass on when someone struck him heavily between the shoulders. He staggered and lurched against the rough board front of the building going almost to his knees.
When he could steady himself he wheeled, his hand at his hip. Standing near him, grinning maliciously, was the man with whom he had collided.