"I sold that off my land a couple of years ago," replied the other. "A man from New Orleans wanted it for a summer place—a business man there, Isidore Gumberts."
Gumberts—"Memphis Izzy" Gumberts! The name flashed to Gramont's mind, and brought the recollection of a conversation with Hammond. Why, Gumberts was the famous crook of whom Hammond had spoken.
"I saw the sheriff awhile ago, heading up the road," observed the Creole. "Did you meet him?"
Gramont shook his head. "No, but I saw several men at the Gumberts place. Perhaps he was there——"
"Not there, I guess," and the farmer laughed. "Those fellows have rented the place from Gumberts, I hear; they're inventors, and quiet enough men. You're a stranger here?"
Gramont introduced himself as a friend of Miss Ledanois, and stated frankly that he was looking for oil and hoped to drill on her land.
"I'd like a lease option from you," he went on. "I don't want to buy your land at all; what I want is a right to drill for oil on it, in case any shows up on Miss Ledanois' land. It's all a gamble, you know. I'll give you a hundred dollars for the lease, and the usual eighth interest in any oil that's found. I've no lease blanks with me, but if you'll give me the option, a signed memorandum will be entirely sufficient."
The farmer regarded oil as a joke, and said so. The hundred dollars, however, and the prospective eighth interest, were sufficient to induce him to part with the option without any delay. He was only too glad to get the thing done with at once, and to pocket Gramont's money.
Gramont drove away, and was just coming to the Ledanois drive when he suddenly threw on the brakes and halted the car, listening. From somewhere ahead of him—the Gumberts place, he thought instantly—echoed a shot, and several faint shouts. Then silence again.
Gramont paused, indecisive. The sheriff was making an arrest, he thought. A hundred possibilities flitted through his brain, suggested by the sinister combination of Memphis Izzy, known even to Hammond as a prince among crooks, with this secluded place leased by "inventors." Bootlegging? Counterfeiting?