"I've given the order," he said gravely. "An order they can't disregard. Let's go back a bit and I'll explain. Do you remember my telling you that your brother had tried to bribe me to use my influence with Mr. Ford?"
"As if I should ever be able to forget it!" she protested.
"Well, that wasn't all that he did—he threatened me—took me to one of the bars in the Niquoia, and let me prove for myself that it was tolerably rich placer ground. The threat was a curious one. If I'd say the right thing to President Ford, well and good; if not, your brother would disarrange things for the government by giving away the secret of the gold placers. It was ingenious, and effective. To turn the valley into a placer camp would be to disorganize our working force, temporarily at least, and in the end it might even stop or definitely postpone the building of the dam."
She was listening eagerly, but there was a nameless fear in the steadfast eyes—a shadow which he either missed or disregarded.
"Naturally, I saw, or thought I saw, a good reason why he should hesitate to carry out his threat," Brouillard went on. "The placer find, with whatever profit might be got out of it, was his only so long as he kept the secret. But he covered that point at once; he said that the 'Little Susan'—with the railroad—was worth more to him and to your father than a chance at the placer-diggings. The ore dump with its known values was a sure thing, while the sluice mining was always a gamble."
"And you—you believed all this?" she asked faintly.
"I was compelled to believe it. He let me pan out the proof for myself; a heaping spoonful of nuggets and grain gold in a few panfuls of the sand. It pretty nearly turned my head, Amy; would have turned it, I'm afraid, if Steve hadn't explained that the bar, as a whole, wouldn't run as rich as the sample."
"It is dreadful—dreadful!" she murmured. "You believed him, and for that reason you used your influence with Mr. Ford?"
"No."
"But you did advise Mr. Ford to build the Extension?"