“Don’t do it!” begged her niece, excitedly. “There’s something queer about it. Let me tell you,” and there poured forth then all her suspicions and her reasons for holding them. She told her aunt about the strange talk she had overheard between the foreman of the ranch and Philo Marsh, as well as about the surveying party she and Tavia had seen back in the hills. She likewise repeated what Lance Petterby had told her that very day.
“I cannot understand it,” Mrs. White said. “I have read the agreement Mr. Marsh offers very carefully. It is between your father and me, as party of the first part (that is the legal phrase), and Mr. Marsh, Mr. Kendrick, and Mr. Stephen Goode, who jointly agree to take the water of Lost River under certain conditions. There is no corporation formed as yet, I am told, and these men constitute a committee.”
“A committee for whom?” asked Dorothy, briskly.
“Why—why, for the people who want the water.”
“But who are they, Aunt Winnie? Philo Marsh says he is acting for the Desert people; but you don’t really know if it is so.”
“Child! it can’t be possible that the man would boldly conspire to gain my signature for a different purpose from that Colonel Hardin intended?”
“That’s exactly what I believe Marsh is aiming to do,” cried Dorothy. “Don’t you sign.”
“I won’t. A bad promise is better broken than kept. I shall write to Mr. Jermyn. When I spoke to him in Dugonne he said he had had no reason for looking into the matter, but he supposed that Mr. Marsh was acting in good faith. Lawyers, I am afraid, are like doctors. The ethics of the profession sometimes stand before their duty to a client.
“But Mr. Jermyn shall come out here and examine the papers and talk with Mr. Marsh in my presence, before I sign,” added Mrs. White. “Thank you, my dear, for being so helpful. Go tell Dempsey to find a man to ride into Dugonne at once with a note.”
Dorothy ran to do as she was bid, while Mrs. White went to write the letter. A man came to the ranch-house in a few minutes, a-straddle of a vicious pony. He was a sullen, rough looking fellow, but Mrs. White presumed he was to be trusted as a messenger.