it would take considerable money to meet their price. Conservatively speaking, you hold mortgages on about a thousand acres and you might buy—quietly, a piece at a time—as many more without exciting comment. Why won't that satisfy?"
"No," Lestrade said, and explained himself in a single phrase. "Whole hog or none. What's two thousand acres in a deal like this? I want the whole valley—or most of it—right under my finger. Moreover, the most important location is where I'd have the hardest time buying. I mean the stretch from Colqueen's down through Henry's and clear to the edge of the town. You see it shaded on the map you've got."
"Don't see how it's to be done," Rounds stated.
Lestrade sat back, his round pink face beaming. "I do. Came to me in a flash last week. Been nursing it ever since. Even got the ball rolling. Simple as falling off a horse. We're going to bankrupt the folks in the valley. Make 'em so poor they can't pay their interest on their mortgages—seventy per cent have got their places in hock—and then take up these mortgages. The rest will be so doggoned discouraged they'll sell for a song and leave the country. See?"
"Simple," Rounds agreed, but with some amount of sarcasm. "How does a man bankrupt a hundred and fifty settlers all at once?"
Lestrade put a counter-question, leaning forward on his trunk and waggling a finger at the two. "What's the single thing folks in this country want most of all?"
"Water," Steele answered as if the word had been on the tip of his tongue.
"Right!" Lestrade boomed, forgetting himself. "And they're in a state of mind where they'll fall in with any harebrained scheme to get it. Well, my scheme ain't harebrained. Up on the mesa is Lake Esprit. That's in my holdings. Well, we are going to organize a settlers' company and run a ditch into the valley from the lake. Each stockholder gets the benefit of it. The more money he puts in, the more stock he gets and the more dividends he draws when the profits begin to arrive. Then—"
"When you've got the money from them to start building the ditch," Rounds interrupted thoughtfully, "you'll slap out, I suppose, and let some dummy corporation foreclose."
"Oh, nothing as raw as that," Lestrade protested. "We'll actually start work. Make some mistake in construction so that it'll cost a lot of money and finally go busted. That won't be difficult. Make it seem like there's no fraud. But the settlers, having put their money into the scheme—and I'll lay they'll fall for it hand over head—won't have a dime to keep on with homesteading. Them that are mortgaged will sell out in order to save something from the wreck. The rest will be so plumb discouraged they'll do likewise. I've already organized a corporation, a dummy one, like you say, in Portland, and transferred the mortgages to it. Meanwhile, it'll be buying more mortgage paper off the local bank, which is pretty heavily loaded—"
"Wait a minute," Steele said. "I don't understand half of this."
Both Rounds and Lestrade looked impatiently toward the cashier. Lestrade made another effort to explain the plan, but broke off in the middle with a grunt. "Hell, it ain't necessary for you to get the workings of it. All you need to know is that we're making a move to get control of this valley. We'll do it in a legal way, what's more."
"Yes," Steele said, "but if the settlers find out we're working crooked there'll be trouble for us. I don't fancy violence."
"No," Lestrade agreed, "you wouldn't. You like your skin. Never mind. When the storm breaks, we'll all be out of the way and let the dummy corporation and the law officers execute the rest of the plan. We'll be in Portland, directing things from there."
Rounds was surveying the plan from various angles, his busy mind bolstering it here and there with certain expedients.
"Now, first of all, you'll have to keep the money you raise in the local bank. That's for the sake of appearances. Everybody knows the bank is honest."
"Agreed," Lestrade said.
"Next, we'll have Steele here made treasurer of the fund. He'll issue money on the labor warrants and for supplies. He being also connected with the bank, he'll be above suspicion."
"Well," Lestrade chuckled, "nobody but you and I know he's crooked."
Steele's impassive comitenance reddened a little. "That's a harsh word, Lestrade."
"Don't be mealy-mouthed," the big man retorted. "I never drew an honest breath and I ain't ashamed to admit it. Only folks don't know I'm crooked. So long as we three keep that information under our hats, all will be fine. Go on, Dan. Your legal mind can fix things up as they ought to be fixed."
"The most essential thing," Rounds went on, "is to have some one of the settlers promote this thing himself. They'll take it better if one of their own kind sets the ball rolling. Then you can come in as the man willing to do the organizing and directing."
Lestrade smiled again. "Already thought of the very person."
"Who?"
"Judge Henry. He's a damn fool if there ever was one. An ounce of flattery will swell his head bigger than a balloon. But the settlers seem to think he's pretty shrewd, so he's our instrument. That's easy. I'll go out this afternoon and see him myself."
"As for organization and the legal end, I'll take care of that," Rounds' resumed. "But why are you in such a hurry?"
Lestrade lost his good humor. "I got a reason to believe there's others who suspect what we've already discovered. Can't let a thing like this lag. I won't have an easy minute until the land's under my thumb."
"Who do you suspect?" Rounds demanded.
"Lin Ballou. He's doing too much prospecting to suit me. Common talk is that he's looking for gold, but if that's so, why should he be traveling back and forth on the valley floor? Any fool knows gold ain't found in such places."
Dan Rounds got up, and for the first time he showed anger. "Yes, and there's a lot of talk around here about his being a rustler. I'd like to find the gent who said as much to me! By Godfrey, I'd wring his neck. Lin Ballou's my friend. He don't know I'm crooked, but I know he's as straight as a string. Rustling talk is all nonsense. As for him being what you think—I doubt that, too. If he says he's prospecting for color, you can believe every word of it."
"All right, all right," Lestrade said. "I didn't mean to rub your fur the wrong way. But, anyhow, it don't pay to let the fat fry too long. I want to get things wound up. Meeting's adjourned. I'm going down to see Henry right off."
Rounds moved toward the door. "I'll rig up the preliminary papers. Now, as I see it, you're the only one interested in this scheme, so far as folks are to understand. Steele and I are just to be instruments. Naturally you and the settlers will come to me to take care of the legal end, but they won't know our connection."
"You've got a good head," Lestrade said. He opened the back door, surveyed the lot for a moment and disappeared.
Shortly, Steele followed suit. Rounds unlocked the intervening portal and let himself back into the front office. The street was deserted. The sun blazed down, relentless in its heat. Rounds took a drink of water from the cooler and wiped the sweat away from his forehead. The meeting had not left him in any serene frame of mind, for though money and power were things he worshiped and now was on the path to gaining, he could not quite bury the uneasy voice of conscience. He strode to the door and looked up and down the dusty thoroughfare. Some distance away, Lestrade cruised slowly toward the stables, his corpulent body swaying and his loose coat flapping. A town loafer sprawled in the shade, asleep. Other than that, the place seemed abandoned, utterly dead. Rounds thought about it, bitterly.
Fifteen years I've spent hereabouts. What's it brought me? Not so much as a county judge's job. Heat and sand and trouble! Why the devil should I worry about what happens to the homesteaders? They wouldn't worry about me if I was sunk. Let 'em scrabble.
But even as he thought it, he knew he would never convince himself. Somehow, they made no men in the world like the men of this valley. There was, for instance, Lin Ballou. Why, he could trust his very life to Lin.
Yet all Lin gets is a bad name for cruising around, he thought. A