"It's up to us to set up a reward, Bud," Jeff went on, in the same passionless fashion. "A big reward. We've got to make it so some amateur Judas is ready to sell his friends. It'll cost us a piece, but it's the way to fix things. And anyway it's going to be worth it, sure. I allow we'll need to hand out the story of reward good. It's got to reach this gang itself. An' if I guess right, and there's toughs from Orrville way running this lay-out, why, they aren't li'ble to have forgotten what happened that time. We'll break the gang, or—we'll get 'em."
There was something unrelenting, and even vicious, in the manner in which he gripped the pencil in his hand and dug the pointed lead and crushed it against the surface of the table. Nan drew a deep sigh of relief as he finished speaking, and turned gladly as her father removed his pipe and cleared his throat.
"An' the reward. How much?" he questioned.
The answer flashed back at him like the slash of a knife.
"Ten thousand dollars!"
In that answer Jeff's voice was unrecognizable to Nan. His whole expression, too, seemed to have undergone some subtle change. She sat groping for the meaning of it all, and somehow regretted she had not remained out on the veranda.
Bud inclined his head and replaced his pipe in corner of his mouth.
"It goes," he declared. Then he lumbered out of his chair. "That all?" he inquired. And by his manner and tone Nan knew that he, too, had been affected by the things which had troubled her.
"Not quite."
Jeff turned on his own foreman. He had lost none his intensity.