In spite of himself, Darley Champers felt his face flush deeply. He had just responded to a solicitation from that organization, assuring the solicitors that he “done it as a business man and not that he was any prayer meetin’ exhorter, but the dollars was all cleaner’n a millionaire’s, anyhow.”
“I thought so,” Smith went on. “Well, briefly, you have a good many things to keep covered, you know, and, likewise, so have your friends, the Shirleys. The girl paid about all the mortgage on that ranch, I find.”
Darley Champers threw up his big hand.
“Don’t bring her name in here,” he demanded savagely.
“Oh, are you soft that way?” The sneer in the allusion was contemptible. “All the better; you will get me some money right away. Why, I haven’t let you favor me 345 in a long time. You’ll be glad to do it now. Let me show you exactly how.”
He paused a moment and the two looked steadily at each other, each seeming sure of his ground.
“You will go to these Shirleys,” Smith continued, all the hate of years making the name bitter to him, “and you’ll arrange that they mortgage up again right away, and you bring me the money. They can easy get three thousand on that ranch now, it’s so well set to alfalfa. Nothing else will do but just that.”
“And if I don’t go?” Darley Champers asked.
“Oh, you’ll go. You don’t want this Y. M. C. A. crowd to know all I can tell. No, you don’t. And Jim Shirley and that girl Leigh don’t want me to publish all I know about the father and brother, Tank. It might be hard on both of ’em. Oh, I’ve got you all there. You can’t get away from me and think because I’m hard up I have lost my grip on you. I’ll never do that. I can disgrace you all so Grass River wouldn’t wash your names clean again. So run along. You and the Shirleys will do as I say. You don’t dare not to. And this pretty Leigh, such a gross old creature as you are fond of, she can work herself to skin and bone to pay off another mortgage to help Jim. Poor fellow can’t work like most men, big as he is. I remember when he got started wrong in his lungs back in Ohio when he was a boy. He blamed Tank for shutting him out in the cold one night, or something like it. That give him his start. He always blamed Tank for everything. Why, he and Tank had a fight the last time they were together, and he nearly broke his brother’s arm off—”