"Sure. I also told him it would cost him a hundred thousand dollars before he gets out of here."
Hazel nodded and laughed.
"It'll do that." Then she sighed. "It'll take me all my wits keeping him from guessing I'm concerned in it. I don't know. Well, good-night, Bud. You're going back to the ranch now. You've only one of the boys here? That's right. Which is it? Sid Blake?"
"Yes, Miss. I left Sid. You see, he's bright, and up to any play you need. I'll get around once each day. Good-night, Miss."
CHAPTER XX
THE BOOM IN EARNEST
It was late in the evening. The lonely house at Buffalo Point stood out in dim relief against the purpling shades of dusk. At that hour of the evening the distant outline of Snake's Fall was lost in the gray to the eastwards. South, there were only the low grass hillocks, now blended into one definite skyline. To the westward, the sharp outline of the mountains was still silhouetted against the momentarily dulling afterglow of sunset. The evening was still, with that wonderful silence which ever prevails at such an hour upon the open prairie.
A light shone in the window of the hitherto closed office at Buffalo Point, and, furthermore, a rig stood at the door with a team of horses attached thereto, which latter did not belong to Mike Callahan.
An atmosphere not, perhaps, so much of secrecy as of portent seemed to hang about the place. The solitary light in the surroundings of gathering night seemed significant. Then the team, too, waiting ready to depart at a moment's notice. But above all, perhaps, this was the first time a sign of life had been visible in the house since the closing down at the moment when Slosson's sudden plunge into the real estate world of Snake's Fall had apparently swept all rivalry from his triumphant path.