Desert Conquest Part 38

"Doesn't your rule work both ways?" she laughed.

"I won't admit it--to you, anyway."

"Why not--to me?"

"Because Wade tells me no man can be forced to incriminate himself," he replied.

Clyde glanced at him swiftly, flus.h.i.+ng in the dusk. But she did not press for an explanation. She was satisfied. She was no longer jealous of Sheila McCrae.

When they arrived at the ranch Dunne took the horses to the stables.

Clyde, entering the house, found Wade alone, deep in newspapers, the acc.u.mulation of a week which he had just received. There was a package of letters for Clyde.

"Look here, Clyde," said the lawyer. "Here's a funny thing." He held a newspaper open at the market page. "This Western Airline stock is as jumpy as a fever chart. For a while it went down and down and down, away below what I should think to be its intrinsic value. There was a rumour of a pa.s.sed dividend. Nothing definite--merely a rumour. Then came another rumour of an application for a charter for a competing line. Both these stories seem to have brought out considerable stock.

There was heavy selling. Likely the traders went short. I'll bet some of them were nipped, too, for the market went up without warning--yes, by George! bounced like a rubber ball."

Clyde looked up from a letter which enclosed a formal-looking statement. "What would send it up?"

"Buyers in excess of sellers--in other words, demand in excess of supply," Wade responded. "That's on the face of it. Probably not half a dozen men know the inside. Orders may have been issued to support the stock--that is, to buy all offered in order to keep the price from declining farther. It's hard to say, at this distance. It's possible that the depressing rumours may have originated with the very men who are now supporting the stock."

"Why should they do that?"

"To buy more cheaply shares which would be offered in consequence. It's funny, though," he continued, opening another paper. "Now, here's a later date--let's see--yes, here we are. The market opened five points higher than it closed on the preceding day, and it closed ten points above that opening. Holy Moses! do you know what that means?"

"Demand in excess of supply."

"Demand! Supply!" Wade echoed contemptuously. "Economics be hanged! It means a fight for Western Air. It means that somebody is willing to pay a fancy price for shares. Why? Because a few shares one way or the other mean the owners.h.i.+p of the road, the dictation of its policy.

There's no other explanation. I wonder who----"

"Look at this," said Clyde. She handed him a telegram. He read:

Sell nothing whatever until you hear from me. Instruct Bradley & Gauss.

JIM.

Wade's lips puckered in a noiseless whistle. He did not need to be told that "Jim" was Clyde's uncle, wily old Jim Hess, of the Hess System. It was he who was out gunning for York and Western Air, and he had the reputation of getting what he went after. What his tactics had been Wade could only surmise. But the antics of the stock were proof that he was in earnest.

"Well," he queried, "what do you know about this, young lady? Have you been holding out on me?"

"I haven't much information," she replied. "Bradley & Gauss are my brokers. They have been buying Western Air for me as it was offered.

There's their statement. Uncle Jim told me to buy it--said that it ought to be worth as much as Hess System some day."

"Heavens! What a tip!" Wade exclaimed. "This will be good news for Casey."

"I don't want him to know."

"Why not?"

"Well, he--he--that is, he might be disappointed. Uncle Jim may not get control. If he does he'll treat everybody fairly, of course. I don't want to raise false hopes."

"Considerate of you," said Wade, "not to say ingenious."

She flushed angrily for a moment, and then laughed.

"It's all the reason you'll get. Be a good friend, do. Promise! Also you are to say nothing to Kitty."

"Afraid of being jollied?"

"Mr. Wade, you are impertinent!" But her eyes laughed at him.

"I'll keep your dark secret," said Wade. "It will be a joke on Kitty!"

And so Casey Dunne was left in ignorance.

CHAPTER XXII

Tom McHale ambled into Coldstream one afternoon, and dropped his pony's reins behind the station. Thence he clanked his spurs into Mr. Quilty's sanctum. That gentleman, nodding somnolently above a blackened clay pipe, rolled an appraising eye at him.

"Fwhere in Hiven's name is the maskyrade at?" he queried sourly. "An'

do yez riprisint Wild Bill Hickox--rest his sowl--or th' 'Pache Kid--th' divil burn him!"

Tom glanced down at his ancient regalia of worn leather chaps, spurs, and the old forty-one that sagged from his right hip, and grinned.

"Guns is coming into style again out our way," he replied. "All the best families wears 'em. There's so many of these here durn hobos and railway men and Irish and other low characters----"

"Th' nerve of yez!" snorted Mr. Quilty. "And the name iv yez 'McHale!'--as Irish, be hivins, as Con iv th' Hundred Battles!"

McHale chuckled to himself, having succeeded in his purpose of getting Mr. Quilty going.

"Irish? Not on your life!" he denied gravely. "What put that notion in your head? The McHales is high-grade Scotch. Always was. They come from Loch Lomond or Commaras.h.i.+ndhu or them parts. Annie Laurie married a McHale. Of course we're Scotch. You can tell by the Mac. The only McHale that ever was in Ireland went there to civilize it."

"To civ'lize Ireland!" Mr. Quilty cried in derision. "Hear till him!

And Ireland the owldest civ'lization in the wurruld, barrin' none, and the best! Faix, we was givin' lessons in it to all mankind whin th' dom raggety-britched tattherdemalions iv Scotchmen hadn't th' dacincy to wear kilts, even, but wint about bare to th' four winds iv hivin, a barbarious race lower nor a Digger Injun, a scandal to G.o.d, man, and faymales black and white."

"Well, maybe you're right about them old times, Corney," admitted McHale, with an innocent face. "I meant a little later than that. This here McHale was with William the Conqueror at the Battle of the Boyne----"

Mr. Quilty spat at the mention of this historic event.

"Bad scran till him, then!" he exclaimed. "Yez do be a high-grade liar, and ign'rant as well. w.i.l.l.yum th' Conq'ror was Irish on his mother's side, an' he bate th' heads off iv th' b.l.o.o.d.y Sa.s.senach, an' soaked their king wan in th' eye wid a bow 'n' arry at a fight I disremimber th' name of, back a thousand years before w.i.l.l.yum th' Dutchman--may his sowl get its needin's!--come out iv his swamps. I tell yez th' McHales come from Galway. In th' good owld days they hanged thim be th' dozen to th' glor iv G.o.d an' th' greater safety iv all live stock. An th'

pity is they didn't make a cleaner job iv ut."

McHale, who was enjoying himself hugely, sifted tobacco into paper.

"I won't say you ain't right, Corney," he observed mildly. "I always understood we was Scotch, but I ain't noways bigoted about it. That hangin' business seems to point to us bein' Irish. Did you ever notice how many Irishmen is hanged? Of course, there's lots ain't that ought to be, but the general average is sure high."

"I hope to glory ye boost it wan higher yerself," Quilty retorted.