he Trans-Western territory, for example: at the present
speaking these grafters--or their man Guilford; it's all the same--own
those people down there body and soul. You couldn't pry Bucks out of their
affections with a crowbar--suddenly, I mean. We'll have to work up to it
gradually; educate the people as we go along."

"I concede that much," said Kent. "And you may as well begin on this same
Trans-Western deal,"--wherewith he pieced together the inferences which
pointed to the stock-smashing project behind the receivership.

"Don't use too much of it," he added, in conclusion.

"It is all inference and deduction as yet, as I say. But you will admit
it's plausible."

The editor was sitting far back in his chair again, chewing absently on
the extinct cigar.

"Kent, did you fuf-figure all that out by yourself?"

"No," said Kent, briefly. "There is a keener mind than mine behind it--and
behind this oil field business, as well."

"I'd like to give that mind a stunt on the _Argus_," said the editor. "But
about the Belmount mix-up: you will give us a stickful now and then as we
go along, if you unearth anything that the public would like to read?"

"Certainly; any and everything that won't tend to interfere with my little
intermediate scheme. As I have intimated, I must bring Bucks to terms on
my own account before I turn him over to you and the people of the State.
But I mean to be in on that, too."

Hildreth wagged his head dubiously.

"I may be overcautious; and I don't want to seem to scare you out, Kent.
You ought to know your man better than I do--better than any of us; but if
I had your job, I believe I should want to travel with a body-guard. I do,
for a fact."

David Kent's laugh came easily. Fear, the fear of man, was not among his
weaknesses.

"I am taking all the chances," he said; and so the conference ended.

Two days later the "educational" campaign was opened by an editorial in
the _Argus_ setting forth some hitherto unpublished matter concerning the
manner in which the Trans-Western had been placed in the hands of a
receiver. In its next issue the paper named the receivership after its
true author, showing by a list of the officials that the road under Major
Guilford had been made a hospital for Bucks politicians, and hinting
pointedly that it was to be wrecked for the benefit of a stock-jobbing
syndicate of eastern capitalists.

Having thus reawakened public interest in the Trans-Western aff