"Of course," Caleb exclaimed, "of course! I see. Is it—is it unethical if I ask, privately, your opinion of this job which the East Coast Company has on its hands? Do you believe they can swing it in time to fulfill all their obligations?"
Again there followed a moment's pause while Steve's eyes roved thoughtfully around the room.
"Mr. Elliott wouldn't have risked every cent he has," he finally replied, "unless I had assured him that it wasn't so very much more than a man-sized gamble. Nor Mr. Ainnesley, either, I think. So that puts it up to me pretty squarely, doesn't it? We'll have to win through—because we have to, now!"
"Quite so!" murmured Caleb again.
He studied a long time over his next words, and it was a very vivid vision of a rigid little figure in a wrecked black velvet suit—a vision of a bleak-faced boy with bruised lips who had insisted upon going back downtown for Miss Sarah's eggs—which eventually overbore his distaste for anything that might savor of disloyalty to a friend.
"Of course there could arise unforeseen circumstances," he ventured. "Unforeseen interference which, unless one guarded against it, might defeat every effort."
The room seemed very, very quiet.
"Of course," came the calm answer at last; and Caleb could not see Steve's face behind the cupped hands at his pipe bowl, "of course—unless one more or less guarded against it."
And there, just as calmly, they dropped it. The topic was not discussed again that night, unless a bit of news which Fat Joe Morgan himself delivered might be construed as somehow relative. Fat Joe had been driving for an hour, silent some of the time, but for the most part devoted to a whole-hearted rendition of "Home, Sweet Home," in his thin and bell-like tenor, when he broke off in the middle of a stanza to chuckle.
"Say, Chief," he exclaimed, "I've got news for you that'll just fill you plumb full of happiness and good cheer. I hired another hand to-day who'll be a distinct addition to our gang up-river. Just to while away the dark hours I'll let you guess for a while who he is. I'll let you guess from here to Last Oak, above the cypress bend at the rapids. One, two, three—and the contest is on!"