man in the buckboard seat. "I believe I'm catching on,
after so long a time. You mean he hasn't the sand."

Gridley neither denied nor affirmed. He had taken out his penknife again
and was resharpening the match.

"Hallock is the man to look to," he said. "If we could get him
interested ..."

"That's up to you, damn it; I've told you a hundred times that I can't
touch him!"

"I know; he doesn't seem to love you very much. The last time I talked
to him he mentioned something about shooting you off-hand, but I guess
he didn't mean, it. You've got to interest him in some way, Flemister."

"Perhaps you can tell me how," was the sarcastic retort.

"I think perhaps I can, now. Do you remember anything about the
sky-rocketing finish of the Mesa Building and Loan Association, or is
that too much of a back number for a busy man like you?"

"I remember it," said Flemister.

"Hallock was the treasurer," put in Gridley smoothly.

"Yes, but----"

"Wait a minute. A treasurer is supposed to treasure something, isn't he?
There are possibly twenty-five or thirty men still left in the Red Butte
Western service who have never wholly quit trying to find out why
Hallock, the treasurer, failed so signally to treasure anything."

"Yah! that's an old sore."

"I know, but old sores may become suddenly troublesome--or useful--as
the case may be. For some reason best known to himself, Hallock has
decided to stay and continue playing second fiddle."

"How do you know?"

The genial smile was wrinkling at the corners of Gridley's eyes.

"There isn't very much going on under the sheet-iron roof of the Crow's
Nest that I don't know, Flemister, and usually pretty soon after it
happens. Hallock will stay on as chief clerk, and, naturally, he is
anxious to stand well with his new boss. Are you beginning to see
daylight?"

"Not yet."

"Well, we'll open the shutters a little wider. One of the first things
Lidgerwood will have to wrestle with will be this Loan Association
business. The kickers will put it up to him, as they have put it up to
every new man who has come out here. Ferguson refused to dig into
anybody's old graveyard, and so did Cumberley. But Lidgerwood won't
refuse. He is going to be the just judge, if not the very terrible."

"Still, I don't see," persisted Flemister.

"Don't you? Hallock will be obliged to justify himself to Lidgerwood,
and he can't. In fact, there is only one man living to-day who could
fully just