This time Dan Saltus allowed himself to chuckle outright.
“He sure does. He’s so near broke that if he was to get a hard shove he would tumble clear over into bankruptcy. But he’s a great bluffer. If he can get that girl of Ranfelt’s he’ll be all right. But the other string he has out, on old man Burwin, of Burwin & Son’s bank, is a good one, too.”
“And yet that deal depends rather on this race for the Lawrence cup, just as his winning Helen Ranfelt does,” remarked Hank Swartz wisely.
“How? I don’t quite get that,” responded Dan Saltus.
“Well, you know that Burnham wants to get old Dick Burwin to open a branch bank out in Carson City, and appoint Burnham the president?”
“Sure! I’m wise to that.”
“Well, Burnham has been bluffing the old man that he can put a hundred thousand plunks into the capital of the new bank. That would give an excuse for making him president. Old Burwin likes the scheme, according to Burnham. But Burnham has always been afraid that when it was sprung on Burwin’s nephew, this Stanley Downs, the beans would all be spilled.”
“I reckon that’s so,” agreed Dan thoughtfully. “This Downs is one smart guy. They say his uncle relies on his judgment in ‘most everything he does.”
“That’s what,” was Swartz’s response. “So it’s up to Burnham to keep it away from Stanley Downs—which he has done up to date—or to queer Downs so badly with his uncle that anything he says won’t count. Pretty slick plan, eh, Dan?”
The two men chuckled in concert. Obviously they were both in a plot that appealed to their peculiar temperament, and which it gave them pleasure to discuss at their leisure.