"It would pay you to be civil," he threatened. "I have no particular reason to love you, and might prove a troublesome enemy. However, because my financial interests, which are bound up with my employers', come first, I warn you that you are foolish to hold on to an associate, who has strong men against him, a speculator whose best days are over. I'll give you time to cool down and think over my suggestion."
"You and I can have no dealings," declared Geoffrey. "What's done cannot be undone—but keep clear of me. As sure as there's a justice, which will bring you to book, even without my help, we'll crush you, if you get in Savine's way, or mine."
"I think this is hardly becoming to either of us, and the next time the Company wants your views it can send another envoy," asserted Leslie.
"In the expressive Western idiom, it would save trouble if you keep on thinking in just that way," Geoffrey rejoined.
The two men parted, Leslie to go back to where Millicent was holding a group of men interested by her forced gayety and Geoffrey to walk slowly out into the moonlight where he could think of Helen and wonder how confidently he might hope to win her love.
CHAPTER XIV
THE WORK OF AN ENEMY
It was a bitter morning when a weary man, sprinkled white with powdery snow, came limping into Thurston's camp, which was then pitched in the cañon. A pitiless wind swept down from the range side across the thrashing pines, and filled the deep rift with its shrill moaning which sounded above the diapason of the shrunken river. A haze of frost-dried snow infinitesimally fine, which stung the unprotected skin like the prick of hot needles, whirled before the wind and then thinned, leaving bare the higher shoulders of the hills, though a rush of dingy vapor hid the ice-ribbed peaks above. The cañon was a scene of appalling desolation, but few of the long-booted men who hurried among the boulders had leisure to contemplate it. The men were working for Geoffrey Thurston, who did not encourage idleness.
So the stranger came almost unnoticed into the center of the camp where Thurston saw him, and asked sharply, "Where do you come from, and what do you want?"