The listener heard the click of the telephone ear-piece replacement.
"It's Goodloe, talking from his station office at Little Butte," replied the mine owner. "The despatcher has just called him up to say that Lidgerwood left Angels in his service-car, running special, at eight-forty, which would figure it here at about eleven, or a little later."
"Who is running it?" inquired the other man rather anxiously, Judson decided.
"Williams and Bradford. A fool for luck, every time. We might have had to écraser a couple of our friends."
The French was beyond Judson, but the mine-owner's tone supplied the missing meaning, and the listener under the floor had a sensation like that which might be produced by a cold wind blowing up the nape of his neck.
"There is no such thing as luck," rasped the other voice. "My time was damned short—after I found out that Lidgerwood wasn't coming on the passenger. But I managed to send word to Matthews and Lester, telling them to make sure of Williams and Bradford. We could spare both of them, if we have to."
"Good!" said Flemister. "Then you had some such alternative in mind as that I have just been proposing?"
"No," was the crusty rejoinder. "I was merely providing for the hundredth chance. I don't like your alternative."
"Why don't you?"
"Well, for one thing, it's needlessly bloody. We don't have to go at this thing like a bull at a gate. I've had my finger on the pulse of things ever since Lidgerwood took hold. The dope is working all right in a purely natural way. In the ordinary run of things, it will be only a few days or weeks before Lidgerwood will throw up his hands and quit, and when he goes out, I go in. That's straight goods this time."