n the county,
was he? Well, Ettinger had fooled him! Ettinger had blinded him with
a promise to sell next week for seventy-five thousand. By that time,
when Leland came to him--

"What's all this?" frowned Shandon. "You say that Leland, Conway and
Hume are already at work, planning to put water from the Bar L-M into
Dry Valley?"

"Already?" cried Ettinger. "They been clawin' at the job over a year
now. The Lord knows what makes 'em so slow; think nobody else in the
world can see straight, or shy on the money end, maybe. Anyhow they've
gone to it tooth and toe nail; they've sunk thousands into it,
thousands I tell you! An' now, you an' me, Shandon, can make the bunch
of 'em eat out of our hands! They can't do nothin' without your water;
that's where we got 'em."

Wayne Shandon's eyes grew bright with a vision, the muscles of his jaw
hardened. In sober truth his opportunity had come to him. Hume, a man
he hated, Leland, a man who had called him laggard, spendthrift,
scoundrel, had put many thousands of dollars into a project which he
could smash into pieces. Ettinger had said it: the two of them could
make Leland and Hume eat out of their hands! They could get Norfolk
and the little fellows; they could tear out the side of the ridge,
release what waters they chose, make their ditches, and by improving
only their own property make Leland's and Hume's holdings worth
nothing. Leland had started it; Leland's unreasonable censure had been
a challenge. Here was his answer!

It was business, straight business. Had Leland and Hume been his
friends it would have been different. But they deserved no
consideration from him. It was his water; he had the right to dispose
of it as he saw fit. He would be treating Leland as fairly as he had
been treated. Why had they not come to him in the first place? Why
had they not offered him the opportunity to get in on the ground floor
with them? He would have given them the water then, glad to see
Wanda's father prospering. But they were holding out, they were
waiting for something, they had made sure of his consent to let them
have what they wanted. Why? When they had everything cornered they
would offer him a small sum, they would believe him fool enough to leap
at it, mouth open, like a fish. Even Garth Conway, his own cousin, had
not told him! What consideration did Conway deserve?

"By Heaven!" cried Shandon.

And then he fell suddenly silent.

"We got