“Yes, he sells to the bucks,” observed Death Valley, slyly. “They’re no good–they get drunk and tell. But you can trust the squaws–I had one here yesterday─”
“You what?” shrieked the Widow, and Charley looked up startled, then rose and whistled to his dog.
“Go lay down!” he commanded and slapped him till he yelped, after which he slipped fearfully away.
“The very idea!” exclaimed the Widow frigidly and then she glanced at Wiley.
“Mr. Holman,” she began, “I came out here to talk business–there’s nothing round-the-corner about me. Now what about this tax sale, and what does Blount mean by allowing you to buy it in for nothing?”
“Well, I don’t know,” answered Wiley. “He refused to pay the taxes, so I bought in the property myself.”
52“Yes, but what does he mean?”
The Widow’s voice rose to the old quarrelsome, nagging pitch, and Wiley winced as if he had been stabbed.
“You’ll have to ask him, Mrs. Huff, to find out for sure; but to a man with one leg it looks like this. Whatever you can say about him, Samuel J. is a business man, and I think he decided that, as a business investment, the Paymaster wasn’t worth eighty-three, forty-one. Otherwise he would have bought it himself.”
“Unless, of course,” added the Widow scornfully, “there was some understanding between you.”