“How’s that?” exclaimed the cowman. “You’ve got something up your sleeve.”
“No, it’s that striped skunk that’s doing the crooked playing,” snapped Gowan. “Can’t you savvy his game? It’s all a frame-up––his sending off his guide and outfit, so’s to let on to you he’d been busted up and kicked out by his dad. You take him in to keep his pretty carcass from the coyotes––which has saved them from being poisoned.”
“Now, look here, Kid, only trouble about you you’re too apt to go off at half-cock. This young fellow may not be––”
“He shore is a snake, Mr. Knowles, and this receipt proves it on him,” broke in the puncher. “Ain’t you taken him into your employ?––ain’t you treated him like he was a man?” 100
“Well, ’tisn’t every busted millionaire would have asked for work, and he seems to mean it.”
“Just a bluff! You don’t savvy the game yet. Busted millionaire––bah! He’s the coyote of that bunch of reclamation wolves. He comes out here to sneak around and get the lay of things. We happen to catch him rustling. To save his cussed carcass, he lets out about who his dad is. Course he couldn’t know we’d got all the reports on that Zariba Dam and who backed the engineer, nor that we’d know all about Blake.”
“Well?” asked Knowles, frowning.
“So he works us for suckers,––worms in here with us where he can learn all about you and your holdings; ropes a job with you, and gets off his report to that engineer Blake, first time he rides over to town.”
“Is that all your argument?” asked Knowles.
“Ain’t it enough?” rejoined Gowan. “Ain’t he and that bunch all in cahoots together? Ain’t this sneaking cuss’s dad either the partner or the boss of Blake? Ain’t Blake engaged in reclamation projects? You shore see all that. What follows?––It’s all a frame-up, I tell you. Young Ashton comes out here as a sort of forerider for his concern; finds out what his people want to know, and now he’s sent in his report to Blake. Next thing happens, Blake’ll be turning up with a surveying outfit.”