"My God!" said the old man, "I forgot!"
"Yes," answered Steering, no hesitation in his voice. "Yes, you forgot her. We must not do that, you know."
After a while they sat down and talked it over at length from beginning to end, and then back again, from end to beginning. Up in the Tigmores Crit Madeira's drills beat and bore at the heart of the earth, deeper, deeper; by the Redbud shack, the two men, on the ground, bore into Madeira's trickery, deeper, deeper. By the light of that torch from the Rockies, they followed the twisting trail all the way from inception to finish. The tortuous, underhand curve of it now and then looked like the self-deceptive work of lunatic cunning. As they talked about it, they talked too earnestly for the little whisking movements in the growth up the bluff to reach their ears.
"At least," cried old Bernique at last, "at least the Teegmores are yours! At last! At last!"
At last! At last! Steering's eyes were travelling the long tumbling Tigmore line. "If they are," he said in that musing way he had developed within the last quarter of an hour, "if I take the Tigmores now, Uncle Bernique, I'll pull Madeira's house about him. That company of his is not so secure that it could stand a blow at its head. If I take the Tigmores,—Uncle Bernique, listen a minute," he was pleading, "she has been used to much all her life. I can't take her father's fortune away from him. Don't you see that? I can't do anything. You understand?" he was commanding. Bernique jumped to his feet.
"God above, you mean——" The thought snapped in the old man's brain, the words stuck in his throat.
"I mean that we must leave things as they are. I can't ruin her father. That's all I mean!"
Bernique doubled up both fists. "I'll see him damn' before he shall keep those Teegmores! I can r-ruin him!" But Bruce caught the old man's arm in a grip that hurt. When Bernique spoke again it was to say breathlessly, "You take the Teegmores, Mistaire Steering, and protect Madeira's fortune. You can do that easy."
"I know. It looks easy. But think back a little. Madeira is sure to fight. Grierson's death occurred months ago under an assumed name. To prove that he died we must prove when he died, where he died and who he was. To prove all that is to let the light in upon dark places. I hardly see how the light can be let in, Uncle Bernique, without cutting Madeira out sharp and keen as a rascal. Madeira would never allow,—at this juncture, he couldn't allow us to establish my claim to the Tigmores on my word and yours. He has done unwise, crazy things already. He would fight us. I know it, you know it. We could win. But where would our victory leave him, Uncle Bernique? Ah, you see?"
The old man was shaking from head to foot. He clung close to Steering. "Oh, my God!" he moaned, "I will not let this thing be."