Hopwood seemed offended at the string of questions. He did not answer at once but seemed to think better of it. “Mr. Roberts,” he answered in the same dull tone.
Sewall turned towards Foster but came back again to Hopwood. “Where’s that man Reynolds?” he asked.
“Left on the train yesterday,” Hopwood answered promptly.
Sewall walked over to where Foster was raving for the benefit of two late comers. “What’s the use of bawling like a spanked kid?” he asked in a disgusted tone. “That is a formal request for bids posted in regular form by the U. S. Government, and if Hopwood has the lingo right it’s according to law. That man Reynolds is the fellow who made a sucker of you and he went home yesterday. I’m going home myself.”
“Going home?” Foster raved. “And let that little squirt of a supervisor rob us of the contract and probably give it to old Jarred Morgan? No, sir, we’ll go down there and teach him that he can’t trifle with the Waits. That contract is ours and I am going to make him give it to us.”
“And get your ears boxed for your trouble,” Sewall sneered as he walked to his horse. “Fighting the Morgans is one thing, but fighting the U. S. Government is something else.”
Foster was furious at the reference to his boxed ears and started after him with waving fists, but Sewall rode slowly out of the yard without so much as looking at him, and his three sons followed him.
Foster bawled threats and objurgations after them till they were far out of earshot and then returned to rail at the others. “Hopwood!” he shouted.
They all looked at the place where Hopwood had been sitting. It was vacant. Hopwood had disappeared in his usual sudden manner.
One by one the others tired of Foster’s futile raving and rode away till the hereditary leader of the family was left alone. The frenzy into which he had worked himself had sobered him and he looked after the last of his departing followers with anxious humiliation. He knew the trouble; it had happened before. He had talked too much and done too little. He would have to do something to reinstate himself and he owed the supervisor something anyway. This would be a good chance to kill two birds with one stone. He would have preferred some company but there was no chance of that now, and he prepared to go alone.