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Updated: June 10, 2025
If the law could avail him, well and good! If not, he'd make a law! McCoppet he knew for a thief a "law-abiding" criminal of the subtlest type. Bostwick, he was certain, was a crook. Behind these two lay possibilities of crime in all its forms. That suddenly ordered survey of the line was decidedly suspicious.
A moment later Bostwick touched him on the shoulder. "Beg pardon," he said, "Mr. McCoppet?" McCoppet nodded. "My name." "I'd like to introduce myself J. Searle Bostwick," said the visitor. "I expected to arrive, as I wrote you " "Glad to meet you, Bostwick," interrupted the other, putting forth his hand. "Where are you putting up?"
"You seem to be pretty well fixed," he added, taking a huge black pistol from his pocket and laying it before him on the table. "Looks like money was easy." "I ain't busted," admitted the gambler. "Have a drink?" "Not till we finish." The lumberman settled in his chair. "That was the way you got me before and you ain't goin' to come it again." McCoppet waited for his visitor to open.
"Van Buren couldn't do no good," McCoppet assured them. "This ain't a matter of wrangling or fighting; it's a matter of law. If the law ain't with us you'll get the property back. Van Buren would tell you the same. He didn't know the ground was reservation. We give him the benefit of that. But all the gold you've got on the place you'll have to leave with me.
Bostwick succeeded in making an early start to the southward in his car. McCoppet had provided not only a couple of men as guides to the field where Lawrence was working, but also a tent, provisions, and blankets, should occasion arise for their use. Beth was informed by her fiancé that word had arrived from her brother, to whom Searle said he meant to go.
"Not much," his friend replied, "except your claim has been jumped by McCoppet and one J. Searle Bostwick, who got on to the fact that the reservation line included all your ground." Van looked his incredulity. "What's the joke?" he said. "I bite. What's the answer?" "Joke?" the cashier echoed. "Joke? They had the line surveyed through, yesterday, and Lawrence confirmed their tip.
Convinced that the gambler was accustomed to incubating plans in his private office, the lumberman made shift to excavate a hole beneath the floor of that particular den of privacy, and, after having spent half a night in vain, in this place of concealment, was at last being duly rewarded as he listened to McCoppet and Lawrence.
"I guess I could tell him I was off don't know the father after all." "Sounds like a kid's excuse," commented McCoppet. "Like as not he'd take it out of you." The likelihood was so strong that Trimmer visibly paled. "I've got to give him somebody's name," he agreed with alacrity. "Has anyone died around here recent?" "Yes," answered McCoppet with ready mendacity.
McCoppet, startled by the accusation, watched the savage manner in which the lumberman ate up the smoke of his weed. He could think of one way only in which a man of Trimmer's mentality could have come upon certain private facts. "So," he said presently, "you crawled in under this place, this floor, and caught it through the cracks." "Knot-hole," said Trimmer gesturing, "that one over there.
Pratt run out the line, and now it's me that stands between you and trouble, and I want the money to stand." McCoppet was far less calm than he appeared. How much was already really known to the town was a matter wholly of conjecture. And Trimmer's haste to cash in thus and probably vanish excited his gravest suspicions. He eyed his friend narrowly.
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