"Now that you've got it, Jap," asked Tom Granger, "what are you going to do with it?" Jap looked silently from the door.
"He put in about eight hours of thinking about that himself," Bill averred. "News is that ten saloons are loaded on freight cars, waiting word from Jap."
"You'll have to strike a happy medium," suggested Tom. "I know that you are the boy to deliver the goods."
"Ellis wasn't against saloons," commented Bill, "so Jap won't have that to chew over. Ellis wasn't either for or against 'em."
"No," Tom said seriously, "Ellis was dead set against hypocrisy. He hated a liar and a grafter worse than a murderer. He knew that the way to make people want a thing was to tell 'em they couldn't have it."
Jap's face was grave. A panorama of wretched pictures moved slowly before his wandering gaze, pictures that began and ended in Mike's place, in the half-forgotten village of Happy Hollow. He aroused himself with a start.
"I'm going to put it up to the new Board to allow as many saloons as want to, to come in," he said shortly.
Tom Granger let go a shrill whistle.
"At the license asked," continued Jap calmly. "The license will be three thousand dollars a year, and strict enforcement of all laws. At the first break, the lid will fall."
"Jumping cats!" howled Tom. "Where will you get the saloon that'll pay that?"