“Because he’s a worm. He was aimin’ to give you the double-cross: tried to sell me a chance on it. I didn’t hate you-all bad enough to let him run loose; see?”
“Is that straight, Dargin?”
“Straight as a string.”
“But they tell me that you and Lushing have a stand-in together; and Lushing hates us heartily enough.”
“Maybe so; and maybe we have got a stand-in. But that ain’t no skin off’m this other thing. Backus is a worm.”
“I’m glad you don’t like worms. I have a feeling that way, myself.”
The master gambler got up and pushed his soft hat back to allow the forelock of Indian-black hair to fall over his brow. As he was moving to the door, he said, “Reckon that’s about all I had to spill—all but one little thing: that damn’ worm’s done dug him a hole and crawled out. Thought maybe you’d like to know. So long,” and he was gone.
For a long time after he was left alone, David Vallory sat on the edge of his bed, buried in thought. With the spy, Backus, at large, it was only a question of time when Lushing would have another weapon in his hands. In odd moments David had made an estimate on the cost of shooting down the menace in the eastern tunnel drifting and concreting the gash which would be left by the blasting out of the fissure material. The figures were appalling. Not only would the profits on the entire contract be likely to disappear in the chasm; there was a chance that there would be a huge loss, as well, since nobody could tell how much of the fissure contents would come down in the blasting. As Eben Grillage had frankly confessed, the line-shortening job had been taken on a narrow margin, and there had been no provision made for untoward happenings.
There was but one conclusion to be reached, and by this time David Vallory had passed all the mile-stones of hesitancy. Backus, the worm, must be found and silenced, and there must be no fumbling delay in either half of the undertaking.