Carhart smiled. President De Reamer was passing with Mr. Chambers and had paused only a few feet away. “There wasn’t any fighting at the La Paz,” he replied.
“There is a grave there,” the questioner persisted.
“How do you know?”
“I rode out and saw it.”
“Then you should have ridden back the length of the line and you would have found a few other graves.” The chief sobered. “You can’t keep a thousand to two thousand men at work in the desert for months without losing a few of them. I’m sorry that this is so, but it is.”
“Mr. Carhart,” came another abrupt question, this time from the keenest-appearing reporter of them all, “What did you say to General Carrington and Commodore Durfee when you saw them at the Frisco?”
Young Van looked at his chief and saw that the faintest of twinkles was in his eyes. He glanced over his shoulder and made out that De Reamer had paused in his conversation with Mr. Chambers, and was listening to catch Carhart’s reply. For himself, Young Van was blazing with anger that this man, who had in his eyes fairly dragged De Reamer through to a successful termination of the fight, should be robbed of what seemed to him the real reward. He had still something to learn of the way of the world, and everything to learn of the way of Wall Street. Then he heard Carhart replying:—
“You must ask Mr. De Reamer about that. He directs the policy of the Sherman and Western.”
And at this the president of the melancholy visage, and with him his vice-president, passed on out of earshot.