"In the meantime, colonel, she keeps you from coming near Landis?"
"Not at all! You fail to understand me and my methods, dear boy. I have only to roll my chair into the room and sit and smile at Jack in order to send him into an hysteria of terror. It is amusing to watch. And I can be there while Lou is in the room and through a few careful innuendoes convey to Landis my undying determination to either remove him from my path and automatically become his heir, or else secure from him a legal transfer of his rights to the mines."
"I have learned," said Donnegan, "that Landis has not the slightest claim to them himself. And that you set him on the trail of the claims by trickery."
The colonel did not wince.
"Of course not," said the fat trickster. "Not the slightest right. My claim is a claim of superior wits, you see. And in the end all your labor shall be rewarded, for my share will go to Lou and through her it shall come to you. No?"
"Quite logical."
The colonel disregarded the other's smile.
"But I have a painful confession to make."
"Well?"
"I misjudged you, Donnegan. A moment since, when I was nearly distraught with disappointment, I said some most unpleasant things to you."