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Updated: June 10, 2025
"Just to change that line a thousand feet," urged the man of gambling propensities. "I'll make it twenty-five." Still Culver made no response. With all his other hateful attributes of character he was tempered steel on incorruptibility. He was not even momentarily tempted to avenge himself thus on Van Buren. McCoppet thought he had him wavering. He attempted to push him over the brink.
He had since spent his money, demanded the balance due, and threatened McCoppet with exposure, only to be met with a counter threat of prison for life as the half-breed's accomplice in the crime. McCoppet meant to pay a portion of the creature's price, but intended to get it from Bostwick.
Then he scurried to the telephone, rang up the office of the sheriff, and presently had a deputy on the wire. "Say, friend," he called, "if Bostwick or McCoppet should return to camp to-night, warn them to keep off the street. Van Buren's in, and I don't want the boy to mix himself in trouble." "All right," came the answer, "I'm on." In less than an hour the town was "on."
He began to consume his cigar once more by inches and watched the effect of his words. There was no visible effect. McCoppet had never been calmer in his life outwardly. Inwardly he had never felt Dearer to death, and his own kind of fright was upon him. "Well," he said, "your aces look good to me. What do you want how much?"
What's the use of being finniky while we live as long as even the Almighty's dealing brace?" Culver was impatient. "Well?" "I won't beat around the chapparal," said McCoppet. "It ain't my way." Nevertheless, with much finesse and art he contrived to put his proposition in a manner to rob it of many of its ugly features. However, he made the business plain.
"On a wild goose séance," answered McCoppet. "He's in the way around here." "Oh," said Bostwick, who failed to understand. "I thought " "Yes. I culled your thought from your letters," interrupted his host drawlingly. "We might as well understand each other first as last. Bostwick are you out here to work this camp my way or the kid's?" Bostwick was cautious. "How does he wish to work it?"
The two were in the den once more, the lumberman smoking an excellent cigar as if it had been a stick of candy. McCoppet came to his subject promptly. "Look here, Larry," he said, "you know Van Buren when you see him." Trimmer glanced up sharply, ready in an instant to resent what he felt to partake of the nature of a personal affront. "Don't git funny, Opal.
"I thought there was something in the wind, all along," imparted the little cashier. "Bostwick and McCoppet have been thicker than thieves for a week. But the money they needed wasn't Bostwick's. I wired to New York to get his standing and he's got about as much as a pin. But the girl stood in, you bet! She's got enough and dug up thirty thousand bucks to handle the crowd's expenses."
Indeed, to-day he had the money, but was far too much engrossed with Lawrence to give the lumberman a thought. Trimmer, waxing greedy through the ease with which he had blackmailed McCoppet, had developed a cunning of his own.
Trimmer, the lumberman, not to be stayed, had broken in upon McCoppet ruthlessly, with perceptions unerring concerning the troubles in the air, when Lawrence was arrested. The gambler consented to an interview with instinctive regard for his safety. That something significant was laid on Trimmer's mind he felt with a subtle sense of divination.
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