“Dan Saltus, you’re just as suspicious now as you ever were,” said Burnham, grinning in a mirthless way. “When you were engineer for me, out in Nevada, I knew that you did not trust anybody—not even your best friend.”
“Best friend, eh?” snorted Mr. Saltus, passing a grimy hand across his almost as grimy face. “Meaning yourself, I suppose?”
“Meaning myself,” assented Burnham. “I was your best friend, and I am now. You would not have this nice little job as foreman of this garage if I hadn’t got it for you.”
“That’s right. Although I don’t know that it is such a nice little job, at that. The men I have around me are all dubs, and if I want anything done right I have to get at it myself. But, never mind that. Drive ahead with what you were going to say.”
Victor Burnham stepped to the door of the garage and looked up and down the short street. It was between six and seven o’clock in the evening, after general business hours, and no one was about. The garage itself was empty but for Burnham and Dan Saltus, the foreman.
“What I was going to say,” resumed Burnham, as he stepped again to the back of the racing car, “is that I have to win this Lawrence Cup.”
“That’s what they’ll all say,” grunted Dan. “I mean, all the drivers.”
“Possibly. But it’s real business with me. I’ve got to win!”
“You’ll take a sporting chance, I suppose?”
“No!” snarled Burnham. “I won’t—if I can help it. This has to be a sure thing for me. Chance won’t do.”