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It so happened that Brick Stoner, en route to Hot Springs for a little rest, was a passenger on the same train. Stoner returned in due time, much rested, and he brought with him a large check to the firm's account. "We timed it to the minute," he told McWade and Mallow. "That gasser couldn't have come in better if we'd ordered it.
All I insist upon is absolute loyalty and obedience to my orders." During the silence that followed, Gray felt the three men staring at him curiously. "You're after big game, I take it?" McWade inquired, mildly. "The biggest in these woods." "One man, did you say?" "One man." "Some grudge, perhaps?" "Perhaps." "A yacht is too expensive for most men, but they don't burn money as fast as a grudge."
This had been the nature of McWade's and Stoner's meeting; on the roof of that swaying Pullman they laid the corner stone of their partnership. Arrived at Wichita Falls, Stoner went into the field and McWade obtained employment in a restaurant.
The nature of the story appealed keenly to McWade, and it ran like this: Stoner had been working in the Louisiana gas fields near the scene of a railroad accident three bulls had strayed upon the right of way with results disastrous to a freight train and fatal to themselves.
If Gray cherished any lingering doubts as to the loyalty of Mallow, erstwhile victim of his ruthlessness, or of McWade and Stoner, the wildcat promoters, those doubts vanished during the next day or two. As a matter of fact, the readiness, nay, the enthusiasm with which they fell in with his schemes convinced him that he had acted wisely in yielding to an impulse to trust them.
It is rumored, quietly, that they are overextended." "I wouldn't care how thin I was stretched if I had their gamble," McWade asserted. "All they have to do is to sit tight. The law of average will pull them out. What do you intend to do?" "To begin with, I intend to stretch them even thinner so thin they'll break, if that is possible." "You can't load them up with more property."
So many were the strangers in Wichita Falls, so great the rush of new customers, that the banks had no means of investigating their accounts except by wiring at their own expense. This was Saturday afternoon, which gave McWade two days of grace, so he pocketed his new pass and check books, then mingled with the crowd at the Westland Hotel.
Stoner himself was directing operations, and he had named the well "Avenger Number One." To-day he and his partner had been listening to Mallow, who concluded an earnest discourse with these words: "Nelson and her are pardners in one deal and he's stuck on her. If anybody can put it over, she's the one." "If he buys that well it'll be the biggest laugh this town ever had," McWade declared.
My new wiggle stick may not find oil every crack, but I bet I can make it point to half a dozen men who " Gray lifted an admonitory hand. "Patience! It may come to something like that, but I intend to break him first. Can I arrive at terms with you gentlemen?" "Write your own ticket," McWade declared, and Mr. Stoner echoed this statement with enthusiasm. "Very well! Details later.
It was a position of trust, for upon him developed the entire responsibility of removing the traces of food from the used dishes, and drying them without a too great percentage of breakage. It kept McWade upon his feet, but, anyhow, he could not sit with comfort, and it enabled him, in the course of a week, to purchase a change of linen and to have his suit sponged and pressed.
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