“We never should have come down here this month when our well needs watching every minute,” the young Indian added after they had entered a nearly empty diner and ordered ham and eggs which neither of them really wanted. “The big companies have the big money, so they’ll gobble up the best of the acreage, as usual. We poor boys will get some small tracts, if we’re lucky. And I don’t think John Hall’s outfit is going to be lucky today.”
“Why is that?” Sandy asked.
“Because most of our bids are for land that’s under dispute between the Navajos and Hopis. They can’t be accepted until some sort of settlement is reached between the tribes. I don’t know why John keeps putting them in. Well—” Ralph finished his coffee and slid off the stool and onto his feet in one motion, like a big cat—“let’s go back and learn the worst.”
There was a strange tenseness in the meeting room when they entered. Cavanaugh and White were standing facing each other across the table. All eyes were riveted on them and not a sound was being made by the onlookers.
“Mr. Cavanaugh,” the Indian Agent was saying, “neither the Service nor the Council can understand the meaning of the bids you have submitted. Some of them are for small tracts around the Pinta Dome area in Apache country where there has never been the slightest show of uranium-bearing ore. I don’t want to tell you your business, but....”
“Thank you for that, Mr. White,” the redhaired giant growled. “Let the bids stand.”
“Very well. They are accepted. But this other bid—for a thousand acres in the bed of the San Juan River. You must have made an error. It is submitted directly to the United States government, instead of to the Navajo Council. Do you wish to correct it?”
“I do not,” snapped Cavanaugh.
“But it cannot be accepted, since the stream is not navigable.”
“I challenge that statement, Mr. White. Under the law it cannot be rejected until the stream is proved not to be navigable. If you won’t accept it, let it stand as a prior claim. Is there anything else?”