ated
cigar.

"Thanks," he said stiffly, and did as she bid him.

"Light up," she urged, and fumbled in a pocket of her waistcoat for a
match which she handed him. "Guess I'll smoke myself. It helps me talk,
and that's what we're here for."

He had not known that she smoked, and as he watched her roll a cigarette
with the skill of much practice the action filled him with fresh
repugnance. Through rings of smoke he regarded her with coldly quizzical
eyes while he waited for her to open the conversation.

"I've got a proposition to put up to you," she began, "a scheme that I
had in the back of my head ever since you started in to 'make the desert
bloom like the rose.'"

Her covert sneer did not escape him, but he made no sign.

She went on--

"It's an easy graft; it's done everywhere, and I know it'll work here
like a breeze."

Graft was a raw word and Symes's face hardened slightly, but he waited
to hear her out.

"You're putting a big force of men on the ditch, I understand. How
many?"

"About five hundred."

"Give me a medical contract."

So that was it? His eyes lit up with understanding. She wanted to make
money--through him? Her tone and attitude was not exactly that of a
person asking a favor. A faint smile of derision curved his lips. She
saw it and added--

"I'll give you a rake-off."

He resented both the words and her tone, but she only laughed at the
frown which appeared for a moment.

"You're 'out for the stuff,' aren't you?" she demanded. "Well, so am I."

He regarded her silently. Had she always been so coarse of speech, he
wondered, or for some reason he could not divine was she merely throwing
off restraint? Brushing the ashes from his cigar with deliberation, he
inquired non-committally--

"Just what _is_ your scheme?"

"It's simple enough, and customary. Take a dollar a month out of your
employees' wages for medical services and I'll look after them and put
up some kind of a jimcrow hospital in case they get too bad to lie in
the bunk-house on the works. I can run in some kind of a cheap woman to
cook and look after them and you bet the grub won't founder 'em. Why,
there's nothin' to it, Mr. Symes--I can run the joint, give you two bits
out of every dollar, and still make money."

Symes scarcely heard what she said for looking at her face. It seemed
transformed by cupidity, a kind of mean penuriousness which he had
observed in the faces of persons of small interests, but never