Jim was not traveling for pleasure and had gone alone. He was
mosquito-bitten and ragged, and his boots were broken. The packers
looked up with languid curiosity as he advanced, and when he asked for
the boss one indicated the tent. Jim stopped in front of the tent and
a man came out. He wore clean summer flannel clothes and looked
strangely neat, but he was sunburnt and strongly made. Something about
him indicated that he knew the bush and had not always traveled
luxuriously.

"Are you prospecting?" he asked. "If you have struck us for supper,
you can see the cook."

"I came to see you, and got supper three or four miles back. I'm
Dearham, of Winter & Dearham. You have probably heard about us."

"Sure," said Martin, rather dryly. "You hold the contract for the new
telegraph line. Somebody told me there was a dame in the firm."

"My partner's sister; I expect Davies told you, but don't see what this
has to do with the thing."

"Sit down," said Martin, indicating a camp-chair, and then beckoned one
of the men. "Bring some green bark and fix that smudge."

The man put fresh fuel on a smoldering fire and pungent blue smoke
drifted about the tent.

"Better than mosquitoes; they're pretty fierce, evenings," Martin
remarked. "Will you take a cigar?"

"No, thanks," said Jim. "I'll light my pipe."

He cut the tobacco slowly, because he did not know where to open his
attack. Martin was not altogether the man he had thought and looked
amused. He was a bushman; Jim knew the type, which was not, as a rule,
marked by the use of small trickery. Yet Martin could handle money as
well as he handled tools.

"Won't you state your business?" the contractor asked.

"I expect you and the Cartner people didn't like it when we got the
telegraph job?"

"That is so. We thought the job was ours," Martin admitted.

"And you got to work to take it from us?"

"How do you mean?"

"To begin with, Probyn, Cartner's man, offered us a thousand dollars to
quit."

"A pretty good price," said Martin. "Since you didn't go, I don't see
why you are bothering me."

"It looks as if you and Cartner had pooled your interests. When we got
to work, your man, Davies, came along and tried to hold us up. It was
not his fault he didn't; the fellow's a crook."

"I haven't studied his character. In some ways, he's useful," Martin
rejoined coolly. "Well, you reckon I sent him! How did he try to
embarrass you?"

"Don't you k