“No, not at present. Later on, say after the evening edition of The Times-Record comes out, I may want to get you on a quick wire. But the chief thing just now is to post the Angels man, and to have him keep in touch with you.”
After Maxwell had gone the chemistry expert finished his breakfast with epicurean leisure, smoked a reflective cigar in comfortable solitude in the hotel lobby, and, when the court hour arrived, went around to the office of the justice of the peace to answer to the charge of assault. As was to be expected, Jennings was not present; was not even represented by an attorney. Sprague pleaded guilty and paid his nominal fine, which MacFarland took with a quiet smile.
“I don’t know what you did to that black-faced bully, Mr. Sprague, but I hope you got your money’s worth,” he said. “Every time he turns up here in Brewster he proves himself an undesirable citizen, right from the word go.”
“Tough, is he?” queried Sprague.
“As tough as they make them. I wonder he didn’t try to get square with you with a gun. That would be more like him.”
“Perhaps he will, later on,” suggested the fined one, with a good-natured smile; after which he went across to his laboratory and was invisible for the remainder of the morning.
Just before noon Stillings dropped into the laboratory office. He found the chemist working among his retorts and test-tubes.
“I fell in to give you a pointer,” was the attorney’s excuse for the intrusion. “Jennings is in town. He came over on the ten-o’clock local and went straight to The Times-Record office.”
Sprague grinned. “You were looking out for him, were you? Somebody got waked up at last?”
“Yes; the High Line people are on, all right,” was the reply. “Smith called an emergency meeting of his directors early this morning. Two of them are Red Desert cattle barons, and they know the Mesquite situation like a book. What none of them can understand is the ‘why’; why the Mesquite outfit should take ninety-nine chances in a hundred of sending a flood down the Timanyoni when there is no money to be made by it.”