De Spain, bullied, haltingly nodded acquiescence.
“Second-growth hickory in the gears,” continued Jeffries encouragingly, “ash tongues and boxes–––”
“Some of those old buses look like ash-boxes,” interposed de Spain irreverently.
But Jeffries was not to be stopped: “Timkin 12 springs, ball-bearing axles––why, man, there is no vehicle in the world built like a Thief River stage.”
“You are some wagon-maker, Jeff,” said de Spain, regarding him ironically.
Jeffries ignored every sarcasm. “This road, as you know, owns the line. And the net from the specie shipments equals the net on an ordinary railroad division. But we must have a man to run that line that can curb the disorders along the route. Calabasas Valley, de Spain, is a bad place.”
“Is it?” de Spain asked as naïvely as if he had never heard of Calabasas, though Jeffries was nervily stating a fact bald and notorious to both.
“There are a lot of bad men there,” Jeffries went on, “who are bad simply because they’ve never had a man to show them.”
“The last ‘general’ manager was killed there, wasn’t he?”
“Not in the valley, no. He was shot at Calabasas Inn.”