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"I haven't come here to-day for a love feast," sneered Hume, already forgetting Conway as he whirled upon Martin. "What I've got to say I'll say my way whether you and your cursed white rat like it or not. I say that somebody has been talking too damned much! That place of Ettinger's as it is, without the water, isn't worth twenty-five thousand.
The only time he was ever credited with a human emotion was when his favourite dog died; he cried over it and then got drunk, careless of cost. Shandon was surprised when he saw Ettinger ride up. He was more surprised at Ettinger's manner when he insisted on Shandon saddling and riding with him where there "wouldn't be no chance of bein' overheard."
We got the chance to git the water on the land and make them fellers pay for it or sell to us at our own figger, ain't we? Why, it's as good as gold, man! If you don't see enough in it as it stands you are in a place where you can hold 'em up for a bonus to boot." Shandon turned away, Ettinger's point of view suddenly disgusting him. His golden opportunity had crumbled into dust and ashes.
But Ettinger's shrewd eyes were sane enough. "We go right up to your lake," he cried shrilly. "We git busy with some engineers an' pick an' shovel men. We blow the side of a hill all to hell an' what happens? The water just comes a bulgin' down into Dry Creek, an' all we got to do down in the valley, twenty, thirty miles away, is dig ditches an' watch our land turn into a gold mine!"
Was he, from the sharp words of an old man who was jealous in his love for his daughter, to draw an excuse to strike at his own cousin and Wanda's father? "Ettinger," he said quietly. "I can't do it. You had better keep your promise to Leland." Ettinger's jaw dropped, his brows puckered in astonishment. "What's the matter with you?" he demanded sharply. "Can't you see the play?
But even the pain of nearly crushed fingers did not drive the grin from Ettinger's face. "You're on," he cried exultantly. "Shandon, we'll frame a deal that'll make millionaires out of us." "And man's work!" was the thought stirring Shandon's heart and brightening his eyes. They rode on, as Ettinger had planned from the beginning, and covered the two miles to Laughter Lake in a few minutes.
They rode up the shoulder of the ridge to the level of the lake; and there Ruf Ettinger's eager finger pointed out where the work was to be done. It was work which Nature might have planned when the mountains were carved, the lake set in its deep bowl. Fifteen feet from this end of the lake the water swept into a narrow channel, a ridge running down from each side.
Ettinger's proposition was no fanciful dream; it was hard, unvarnished fact. And, as so often happens when a man sees a radiant possibility, he wondered that he had not seen it for himself long ago. Here was the golden opportunity his soul, in a mist, had yearned for! He shot out his hand gripping Ruf Ettinger's until the little man squirmed.
Ettinger's excitement was too genuine not to awaken certain glimmerings of interest. Water, that was the thing! Now, if there were water, plenty of water, in Dry Valley; if a man could flood his land from brimming ditches then what would happen? The soil was deep and rich; it had been slipping down from the mountains for centuries; it had never been worn out by farming.
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