"Well, I'm clear, anyhow," muttered the agent, ducking out of the office.
"The poor fool," murmured Grist. He smoked alone in the darkness, turning over all his own transactions, examining his career with the P.R.N. for flaws. As far as he could reason the thing out they could pin nothing on his name. He obeyed orders, he didn't give them. If those orders happened to be ill-founded in law, what fault was that of his? He wasn't a lawyer. Of course, he had used his power criminally more than once—as in the effort to rustle Gillette's cattle. But there was no proof of this, and his own crew wouldn't ever testify against him.
"I happen to have all their instructions to me neatly filed for reference. And yet those instructions, when you come right down to it, are as innocent as a new-born cat. Ha—it would appear I was in the hole, after all. They'd be just the gentlemen to say I horribly violated their orders to be legal. Now who's foolish?"
He stirred in the chair and threw away his cigar. "I'd be wise if I drifted now. Still, it might blow over. Anyhow, the Senator isn't in Washington yet and won't be for a few days. So, why not wait? I'd hate to duck out of a good job and then find out nothing happened. We'll hang on a week."
Grist, however, was a little short on his time calculation. He overlooked the telegraph wires, and Senator Costaine kept those wires busy all along the route to the capital city. The effect of those messages was to throw a certain clique into high alarm, and forty-eight hours after his departure from Nelson the repercussion of that alarm returned to Nelson and struck both Grist and the land-office agent almost at the same moment. Grist received the following short query:
WHAT HAVE YOU DONE IN VIOLATION OF INSTRUCTIONS?
Grist pondered over this a full day before sending back his answer, which was almost equally terse though a great deal more flippant.
HAVE WASHED SOME DIRTY SHIRTS, AS PER INSTRUCTIONS.
The land agent came down to Grist's office in very much of a hurry. He looked older, and there was a furtive expression on his face. "I told you—I told you! Now the department is on my heels. There's an inspector coming out here. My God, this is what a man gets for trying to pay his debts! Look at me!"
"I see you distinctly. What are you worrying about? You're on solid ground. No proof of a forgery or anything like that, is there? Stand fast and get hold of yourself. This battle isn't lost yet."
"All right for you to say," muttered the agent. "You don't know what kind of a mess I'm in." He turned about the office two or three times before going out. On the threshold he threw a last word back. "I'm taking a little ride to clear my head."
Grist saw him go to the stable and presently come out with a horse and rig. The tail of the rig was filled with luggage; and as the man dipped beyond the street end and struck across the tracks into the open prairie Grist nodded. "That's the last of him. Well, he's wise. I should be doing it right this minute. But we'll wait and see what the next mail brings forth."
He rode back to the P.R.N. home ranch and stayed two days, in the course of which he let off no less than ten of his punchers, among these being the man who had filed on the Gillette water right. His instructions to them were pointed. "This country's getting pretty hot. It's a rotten climate. Were I you I believe I'd travel west until I found the exact spot where the sun went into a hole." With that done he returned to Nelson and found a pair of telegrams waiting for him. He read them in the order of their date.
DISLIKE TENOR OF LAST WIRE. INNUENDO INSULTING. WE HEAR FROM RELIABLE SOURCES YOU HAVE OVERSTEPPED YOUR AUTHORITY. DO YOU UNDERSTAND ANY UNLAWFUL ACT ON YOUR PART IMPLICATES US? IF SUCH IS CASE YOU MUST TAKE CONSEQUENCES.
And the other telegram:
KEEP WITHIN YOUR EXPLICIT INSTRUCTIONS. WHO TOLD YOU TO EXTEND RANGE SOUTH OF RIVER? WITHDRAW ALL CATTLE FROM THAT SECTION, DROP ALL BUSINESS CONNECTED WITH IT. YOUR LACK OF JUDGMENT AND DISCRETION ASTOUNDING. INVOLVES US WITH GOVERNMENT. GET YOUR BOOKS IN ORDER AND RENDER US A FULL ACCOUNT OF YOUR ACTS. LETTER FOLLOWS.
"In other words they're putting themselves on record as disavowing me," mused Grist. "They've tucked tails, the fat yellow scoundrels. Overboard goes the furniture to save a leaky boat. It won't do. They'll lose the beef contract, and they'll lose every inch of land they've had me steal. I'm through."
He saw the handwriting on the wall. Methodically he set about bringing up his account, and during the ensuing four days he brought together all the odds and ends of company business, even leaving a list of instructions for his unknown successor. And then, with all that behind him, he closed down the desk top, locked the office door, and crossed to the hotel. He was through.
"Just so. All it took to knock over an empire was one little puff of air and a single beam of daylight. Grist, my boy, let that be a lesson in high morality for you. There's always one honest man among a hundred fools. Now we shall eat the feast of Nero, salute this town, and depart. One more day and I'm apt to find myself in the lock-up. They're desperate for a victim."
He gave the office key to the hotel man with instructions to transfer it when his successor came; he started for the dining room, hungry and moved to a kind of flippant amusement. Half in his chair he heard the hotel man say:
"That's Tom Gillette ridin' in, ain't it? Sure. Somebody told me he went to Deadwood. Well, he'll be on somebody's trail."
A startled expression skittered over Grist's face. He did not touch the chair's bottom; pivoting he went out the back door and on down the back alley.
Gillette's first visit, once in Nelson, was to the United States Marshal. "Well, you invited me to come get a warrant, Hannery. Here I am."
The marshal tilted back his chair. "I wasn't in any hurry about that, Gillette. Why in thunder are you?"
"Because I don't want it hanging over me," said Gillette soberly. "That's some of friend Grist's work, isn't it?"
"That's right. So is the eviction proceedings, if you want the opinion of a private citizen."
"All right, serve your warrant. If there's twelve men in Dakota who'll convict me on that charge then they're a new brand of settlers to me. I'll go that one better—if there's six men, outside of the P.R.N. crew, who'll convict me I'll pay for my own funeral."
"I know that as well as you do," drawled Hannery. "Don't you figure I'm familiar with public opinion in this district? Hell, it's so flat a case the U. S. Attorney won't clutter up his docket with it. He told me so."
"Well, I don't want it hanging over," said Gillette. "Let's clear the matter up. Let's go through with it."
Hannery shook his head. He was a florid man, and he owned a rough sense of humour that now and then snapped to his eyes. It appeared now. "Reckon I've got to disappoint you, Gillette. Fact is, I filed that warrant somewhere and I've lost it. All my papers get throwed around so dog-gone carelessly. If you want to be served you'll have to wait till I find it. Meanwhile you go about your business. My opinion is it got into the waste basket by mistake. Come to think of it, I'm almost sure somebody cleared my desk the other day."
Gillette rolled a cigarette, frowning over the operation. Presently he looked up. "Hannery, you're a white man."
"The country used to be nothing but white men," was the marshal's gruff answer.
"Grist'll bring it up again, though."
"Like hell he will. Haven't you heard any of the news? Grist resigned his job three days ago. He's still around town, but he's got nothing to do with the P.R.N. any more. What are you worrying about?"
"A fact?" murmured Gillette, plainly surprised. "What jarred him loose?"
"I don't know for sure. But Senator Billy Costaine stormed into town some ten days back and took enough depositions to fill a wagon. Right after that the land-office fellow skipped. Next, Grist filled in his ticket. You can guess for yourself."
He leaned forward, a stubby finger tapping the table. "Speakin' privately, that Eastern bunch was ridin' awful high, and they stood to make a