"There's oil there still—and there's places where it would pay. That's why I'm itchin' to go back. With what I know now and those fools there don't know, I could get rich; big rich, and this damned young Wellver stands barrin' my way."
"Perhaps,"—the German spoke tentatively—"we could do business together. I go to the States shortly mein-self."
"Business, hell!" Saul Fulton's hand smote the table. "A stranger couldn't swing things. Folks would jump prices on you. They suspicion strangers, there."
He sat silent for a time, and the German puffed contemplatively at his cigarette. Outside somewhere a band was playing. Above the patio where they sat at table the stars were large and tranquil. A fountain plashed in silvery tinkles.
Saul Fulton's face grew sinister with its thoughts, and when at last he spoke again it was with the air of a man who has debated to a conclusion the problem that besets him and who, having decided, sets his foot into the Rubicon of action.
"I'm goin' back there, myself. There's ways an' means of gettin' rid of brash trouble-makers, an' if any man knows 'em in an' out, an' back an' forth, it's me."
Otto Gehr shrugged his white-coated shoulders.
"The fit should survive," he made answer.
Saul raised his almost empty glass. "Here's Luck," he said. "This Wellver lad is marked down for what's comin' to him."