o to
smash on us."

He turned on Hans fiercely.

"And you know how I lost by you in this town and the land around it. It
was my money took up all this ground to help build up Wykerton and you, as
my agent, sold every acre of it to Jacobs."

This as fiercely as Darley Champers.

Both men nodded and Darley broke in:

"I was honest. I thought Jacobs was gettin' it to boom Wykerton with, or
I'd never sold. And him bein' right here was a danged sight easier'n
havin' some man in Wilmington, Delaware, to write to. That's why I let him
in on three sides, appealin' to his pride."

But Thomas Smith stopped him abruptly.

"Hold on! You need money to push your schemes now. And I'm the one who
does the financing for you."

Both men agreed.

"Then it's death to either of you if you ever tell a word of this. You
understand that? I'm not to be known here because I'm a dead man. I'm the
cashier that was mixed up in the Cloverdale bank affair. And, as I say, if
Jane Aydelot had let things alone Tank Shirley and I could have pulled out
honorably, but, womanlike, because she had a lot of bank stock and was the
biggest loser of anybody, in her own mind, she pushed things where a man
would not have noticed or kept still, and she kept pushing year after
year. Damn a woman, anyhow! All I could do at last was to commit suicide.
Tank planned it. It saved me and helped Tank. You see, Miss Jane had a
line around his neck, too. She was the only one who really saw me go down
and she spread the report that I'd committed suicide on account of the
bank failure. So, gentlemen, I'm really drowned in Clover Creek right
above where the railroad grade that cuts the Aydelot farm reaches the
water."

Darley Champers wondered why Thomas Smith was so particular in his
description.

"I've known Jim Shirley all my life. He was as bad a boy as ever left
Cloverdale, Ohio, under a cloud. Got into trouble over some girl, I
believe, finally. But you can see why I'm out of this game when it comes
to the open. And maybe you could understand, if you knew the brothers as
well as I do, why Tank keeps me after him. And I'll get him yet."

The vengeance of the last words was venomous.

"Well, now we understand each other we'll not be tramping on anybody's
corns," Darley Champers urged, anxious to get away from the subject.

With all of his shortcomings he was a man of different mould from the
other men. Eagerness to represent and invest large capital and to