Phil felt the thrust. He went over to the bed, tilted up Jim’s chin with his forefinger and looked straight into his mischievous eyes.
“Seeing you know so much, Jim Langford,––tell me more. What side is Brenchfield on in this affair?”
Jim grew serious all of a sudden.
“Now you’re talking!” he exclaimed, his eyes snapping angrily and his voice throwing fire. “I’ve had no darned use for that son-of-a-gun for some considerable time. He has his nose in everything. He pretty nearly bosses the whole Valley. He’s political boss, Mayor, 186 rancher, and God knows what else. If he isn’t crooked, why does he have his biggest ranch right in the thick of that Indian settlement? He has the whole of the breeds on the reservation under his thumb. He’s a party heeler, a grafter from away back, and everybody falls for him. And yet,––good Land!––if you did so much as open your mouth against him, you’d get run out of town.”
“Go on! Go on!” applauded Phil. “I like to hear you.”
“Yes!––and you’ve got the biggest grudge against him of any for something or other, or I’m not Wayward Langford. But you’re so darned tight about it.”
Phil’s applause ended abruptly.
“Thought that would stop you!” grinned Jim. “But that man, and the blindness of the so-called wise men of this wee burg make me positively sick in the stomach.
“Who’s at the back of the whole feed steal?––Brenchfield! Half-breeds didn’t make that tunnel. It is a white man’s job all through. It was all nicely done. Oh, ay! A tunnel to the three warehouses, Brenchfield’s included! Thieving right and left and Brenchfield always losing a bit––to himself––every time; just to keep up appearances; and getting richer and richer every theft until he owns about as much land and gear as Royce Pederstone does!”
“Well then, Jim;––why can’t that fertile brain of yours devise something to land him on this?”