"Indebted to me?"
"You remember what I asked you when I was going over this proposition with Greenfield and Burk in the Company office?"
"I remember that you asked me about the soil in the district."
"You answered that the soil was all right."
Holmes drew a long breath. "And you let Uncle Jim and Burk think—"
"I let them think what they wanted to think," said Jefferson Worth.
Barbara, who had listened with intense interest to the conversation, at Holmes's unfinished remark and her father's reply moved El Capitan slowly away from his place beside Worth's horse and went close to Abe Lee. All the gladness was gone from the young woman's face now, and while she maintained a show of interest it was plainly forced.
The banker, at his daughter's movement, retreated behind his gray mask and for the rest of the trip spoke only when it was necessary, leaving her entirely to the surveyor and Willard Holmes.
Barbara had understood from the talk of the men that her father, by using the unsuspecting engineer, had in some way shrewdly gained a business advantage over the Company. The incident forced her, as she thought, to see with a cruel clearness that to Jefferson Worth this splendid work of reclaiming the desert was nothing but the opportunity to win larger financial gains; that he was still practicing the tactics for which he was famous. She shrank from him unconsciously but to the man as plainly as she had drawn back in fear that night years before. As the baby had turned from him to the Seer then, the young woman turned from him to Abe Lee now.
During the rest of the day Barbara kept so close to the surveyor's side that Willard Holmes had no opportunity to talk with her alone, and when they arrived again at the headquarters camp the engineer, promising to call upon her soon in Kingston, left for one of his own camps a few miles away.