Clavering’s eyes twinkled as he walked towards the older man, while Hetty crossed the room to where Miss Schuyler sat. Both apparently became absorbed in the books Clavering had brought, but they could hear the conversation of the men, and it became evident later that one of them listened. Torrance had questions to ask, and Clavering answered them.
“Well,” he said, “I had a talk with Purbeck which cost us fifty dollars. His notion was that the Bureau hadn’t a great deal to go upon if they meant to do anything further about dispossessing us. In fact, he quite seemed to think that as the legislature had a good many other worries just now, it would suit them to let us slide. He couldn’t recommend anything better than getting our friends in the lobbies to keep the screw on them until the election.”
Torrance looked thoughtful. “That means holding out for another six months, any way. Did you hear anything at the settlement?”
“Yes. Fleming wouldn’t sell the homestead-boys anything after they broke in his store. Steele’s our man, and it was Carter they got their provisions from. Now, Carter had given Jackson a bond for two thousand dollars when he first came in, and as he hadn’t made his payments lately, and we have our thumb on Jackson, the Sheriff has closed down on his store. He’ll be glad to light out with the clothes he stands in when we’re through with him.”
Torrance nodded grim approval. “Larry wouldn’t sit tight.”
“No,” said Clavering. “He wired right through to Chicago for most of a carload of flour and eatables, but that car got billed wrong somehow, and now they’re looking for her up and down the side-tracks of the Pacific slope. Larry’s men will be getting savage. It is not nice to be hungry when there’s forty degrees of frost.”
Torrance laughed softly. “You have fixed the thing just as I would.”
Then his daughter stood up with a little flush in her face. “You could not have meant that, father?” she said.
“Well,” said Torrance, drily, “I quite think I did, but there’s a good deal you can’t get the hang of, Hetty—and it’s getting very late.”
He looked at his daughter steadily, and Flora Schuyler looked at all of them, and remembered the picture—Torrance sitting lean and sardonic with the lamplight on his face, Clavering watching the girl with a curious little smile, and Hetty standing very slim and straight, with something in the poise of her shapely head that had its meaning to Miss Schuyler. Then with a “Good-night” to Torrance, and a half-ironical bend of the head to Clavering, she turned to her companion, and they went out together before he could open the door for them.