“No; but at the same time Smith is on record as having said that ten feet wouldn’t endanger his dam or the power plant. So there you are again.”
Stillings walked the length of the alcove twice with his head down and his hands in his pockets before he stopped in front of the expert to say: “You’ve half-convinced me, Mr. Sprague. If we could get the barest shred of evidence that these people are building a dam which isn’t intended to hold——”
“There spoke the lawyer again,” laughed Sprague. “If you had the evidence, what would you do?”
“Institute legal proceedings at once.”
“And how long would it take you to get action?”
“Oh, that would depend upon the nature of the evidence I had to offer, of course.”
Sprague laughed again, derisively this time.
“Yes, I thought so; and while you were getting out your writs and monkeying around—do you know what that piece of canyon track cost, Mr. Stillings? I was told to-day that three million dollars wouldn’t replace it—to say nothing of what it would mean to the railroad company to have its through line put out of business indefinitely. No; if we mean to——”
The interruption was the intrusion into the alcove of a huge-framed, hard-faced man who was fumbling in his pocket for a paper.
“Hello, Harding,” said Stillings; and then, jokingly: “What brings the respected sheriff of Timanyoni County charging in upon us at this time of night?”