It was Hatch who broke the stillness.
"It's up to you, Clanahan, and you know it," he declared. "You've had your tip from the Big Fellow. The railroad people must be made to get into the fight in the coming election, and get in on the right side. If they don't; and if Norcross stays and keeps his fire burning; you fellows lose out. So shall we; but what we lose will be a mere drop in the bucket; and, as I have said, we stand to get it back, after this coöperative scheme has had time to burn itself out."
Clanahan sat back in his chair and shoved his hands into his pockets.
"Ye'd sthring me as if I was a boy!" he scoffed. "'Tis your own game fr'm first to last. D'ye think I'm not knowing that? 'Tis bread and butther and th' big rake-off for you, and little ye care how th' election goes. Suppose we'd croak this man in th' hot par-rt av th' p'litical fight; what happens? Half th' noospaypers in th' State'd play him up f'r a martyr to th' cause av good governmint, and we'd all go to hell in a hand-basket!"
I was cramped and sore and one of my legs had gone to sleep, but I couldn't have moved if I had wanted to. My heart was skipping beats right along while I waited for Hatch's answer. When it came, the drumming in my ears pretty nearly made me lose it.
"Clanahan," he began, as cold as an icicle. "I didn't get you down here to argue with you. We've got your number—all your different numbers—and they are written down in a book. You've bungled this thing once, and for that reason you've got it to do over again. We haven't asked you to 'croak' anybody, as you put it, and we are not asking it now."
"'Tis domned little you lack av asking it," retorted the dive-keeper.
"Listen," said Hatch, leaning forward with his hands on his knees. "Besides keeping cases on Norcross here, we've been digging back into his record a few lines. Every man has his sore spot, if you can only find it, Clanahan—just as you have yours. What if I should tell you that Norcross is wanted in another State—for a crime?"
"Nobody would believe ut," was the prompt rejoinder. "If he's wanted he c'u'd be had."
"Wait," Hatch went on. "Before he came here he was chief of construction on the Oregon Midland. There was a right-of-way fight back in the mountains—fifty miles from the nearest sheriff—with the P. & S. F. Norcross armed his track-layers, and in the bluffing there was a man killed."