"You see," he concluded, "the old reservation line might actually be wrong—and all you'd have to do would be to put it right. That's what we want—we want the line put right."
Culver was more angered than before. He understood the conspiracy thoroughly. No detail of its cleverness escaped him.
"If you thought you could trade on my personal unpleasantness with an owner of the 'Laughing Water' claim," he said hotly, "you have made the mistake of your life. I wish you good-day."
He rose to go. McCoppet rose and stopped him.
"Don't get feverish," said he. "It don't pay. I ain't requesting this service from you for just your feelings against a man. There's plenty in this for us all."
"You mean bribe money, I suppose," said Culver no less aggressively than before. "Is that what you mean?"
"Don't call it hard names," begged the gambler. "It's just a retainer—say twenty thousand dollars."
Culver burned to the top of his ears. He looked at McCoppet intently with an expression the gambler could not interpret.
"Just to change that line a thousand feet," urged the man of gambling propensities. "I'll make it twenty-five."
Still Culver made no response. With all his other hateful attributes of character he was tempered steel on incorruptibility. He was not even momentarily tempted to avenge himself thus on Van Buren.