"We have not; an' by that ye will know that we've been in this town less than an hour by Tex's watch that Barbara give him an' that he lost down the shaft at Gold Center."
When the surveyor had explained his presence in Rubio City and Texas
and Pat had agreed to join the King's Basin party, the stranger said:
"I think it is quite time now that I introduce myself. You are Mr. Lee,
I believe."
Abe assented and with his two companions regarded him with interest.
Taking a letter from his pocket and handing it to the surveyor, the young man continued: "I am a civil engineer. I have instructions from the Chief to report to you. My name is Willard Holmes."
The next morning the young engineer from the East presented his card at the Pioneer Bank and asked for Mr. Worth. The man who received the correctly engraved bit of pasteboard merely nodded toward the other end of the long partition of polished wood, plate glass and bronze bars. "You'll find him back there, Mr. Holmes."
The New Yorker smiled at the provincialism but sought the banker without further ceremony.
Closing the door with one hand Jefferson Worth with the other indicated the chair at the end of his desk. "Sit down."
"You have a letter from Mr. Greenfield relative to my coming?" asked
Willard Holmes.
The banker lifted a typewritten sheet from his desk, glanced at it and turned back to his visitor. "Yes," he said.
The involuntary movement was the instinctive act of one who habitually verifies every statement. Then, as those expressionless blue eyes were fixed on the stranger's face, the engineer's sensation was as though from behind that gray mask something reached out to grasp his innermost thoughts and emotions. He felt strangely transparent and exposed as one, alone in his lighted chamber at night, might feel someone in the dark without, watching through the window. Presently the colorless, exact voice of Jefferson Worth asked: "This is your first visit West?"