James Greenfield was not slow to grasp the point. A simple explanation of the situation from Jefferson Worth with the old contract to back it up would turn the wrath of the people against the Company president. Rising, he said with an oath: "You win, Mr. Worth. I'll have the contract ready for your signature in the morning. Now what will we do with that mob out there?"
"It is your mob, Mr. Greenfield," answered Jefferson Worth.
A few minutes later from the front porch of the Worth cottage, with Texas Joe on his right hand and Pat on his left, Horace P. Blanton announced: "Our committee will report at the opera house in half an hour."
The committee reported that Kingston was saved and the orator of the day made another speech so far eclipsing all his former efforts that the cheering citizens were evenly divided as to whether it was James Greenfield, Jefferson Worth or Horace P. Blanton who saved it.
"Well, boys," remarked one of the men from the South Central District as the little party of horsemen set out for the long ride home, "one thing is sure. Those Kingston fellows have got the railroad, but we still have Jefferson Worth, an' I reckon that Jeff can build us a railroad any old time he gets ready."
"That's right," returned another, "but what in hell do you suppose it was all about? What's Jeff's game anyhow?"
CHAPTER XXIII.
EXACTING ROYAL TRIBUTE.
In spite of the optimistic view of the man who said that Jefferson Worth could build a railroad for Barba and the South Central District whenever he wished, there was no little disappointment expressed in Worth's town when it became known that the Company town was to have the road.
When the grading camps had returned to their former locations and the construction train drew every day nearer Kingston, with the time approaching when regular trains with passengers and freight would ply to and from the Company town, the feeling of discontent in Barba grew. It even came to be generally understood throughout the Basin that the whole movement had been cleverly planned by Jefferson Worth to force The King's Basin Land and Irrigation Company to make a large contribution to the railroad builder's personal fortune. The people sensed something in the whole transaction that they could not clearly grasp, an intangible, mysterious something, as great as it was indefinite. They felt blindly that they were being used without their consent in a game played by these master financiers, and they resented being sacrificed as dumb pawns in a move, the purpose of which they could not know.