"Why, certainly. You have transferred that claim to the Company."
"Well, why didn't Jepson do that work? Do you mean to say that that high-priced man, getting his twenty-five thousand a year, deliberately sat down and let that assessment work lapse and then let Ike Bray jump it?"
"Yes," she nodded, "that's it."
"But——" He stopped and a wave of sudden intelligence swept the passion from his face.
"It's Stoddard!" he said and once more she nodded, then waited with an understanding smile.
"Yes, it's Stoddard," she said. "But of course we can't prove it. Mr. Bray has already begun suit."
"What, suit to dispossess us? Does he claim the whole works? Well, there must be somebody behind him. You don't think it could be—what? Well, doesn't that—beat——"
"Yes, it does!" she cut in hastily. "The whole thing has been very carefully thought out."
He slapped his leg and, rising from his chair, paced restlessly to and fro.
"How'd you know all this?" he demanded at last and something in the nagging, overbearing way he said it woke the smouldering fires of her hate.