"You don't want to be too sure that their stuff won't get into the Hole," put in McKee with a nodding of his head.
"I s'pose they put a man in the Gap to go to sleep, did they?" Webb returned. "It was a good move on Beck's part. I wish to hell they would get by and perish of thirst. We'd keep 'em out of Cole's water, you bet! Beck's too wise to give us a chance, though."
"Mebby he ain't so wise as he thinks," McKee insisted in that queer, lofty manner. "He put a man there all right, all right, but everybody ain't been asleep."
Hepburn started to say something to Webb but was arrested by this.
"What you got in your head, Sam?" he asked, with more intent than he had used in questioning McKee in months.
Sam felt himself assuming a sudden importance at this; his manner of mystery and confidence had caught their interest and it was the first time he had so succeeded for long, the first time he had really been an insider in the game they played. It was gratifying to know facts which they did not know; he cherished this superiority, so he said:
"Never you mind what's in Sam's head. You've been figurin' I'm a helpless sort of waddie for a long time but I guess you'll think different when you find out some things I know!"
Hepburn urged again but McKee was no more responsive so the older man put McKee's secretiveness down as pique, concealing nothing of value, and went on with the talk.
Later in the evening Webb said:
"Sure you didn't leave anything by the tank that'd give us away?"