Thomas Smith spoke deliberately. There seemed to be none of Champers’ bluster nor Wyker’s malice in the third part of the company, or else he was better schooled in self-control.
“You have it exactly,” Champers declared. “The first thing is to take in fellows like Jim Shirley and Cyrus Bennington and Todd Stewart, and Aydelot, if we can.”
“Yes, if we can, but we can’t,” Thomas Smith insisted.
“And having got the land, with or without their knowing why, we boom her to destruction. But to be fair, now, why do you want to keep yourself in hiding, and who’s the fellow you want to kill?” Darley Champers said with a laugh.
“I may as well let you know now why I can’t be known 191 in this,” Thomas Smith said smoothly, even if the same gray hue did flit like a shadow a second time across his countenance—a thing that did not escape the shrewd eye of Darley Champers this time.
“Wyker is pitted against Jacobs. You are after Asher Aydelot’s scalp, if you can get it. I must get Jim Shirley, fair or foul.”
Smith’s low voice was full of menace, boding more trouble to his man than the bluster and threat of the other two could compass.
“I paid you well, Darley Champers, for all information concerning Jim when I came here fifteen years ago. I was acting under orders, and as Jim would have known me then I had to keep out of sight a little.”
“Vell, and vot has Shirley ever done mit you that you so down on him?” Hans Wyker asked.
The smooth mask did not drop from Smith’s face, save that the small dark eyes burned with an intense glow.