"I am discreet," he reassured. "I understand."

After a moment he added, "It may surprise you, mein friendt, to learn
that I, too, have been in your Kentucky mountains. It was when they
first talked of oil there some years back.... I did not remain long....
Oil there was but not in gushers ... at the price of the markets it did
not pay. It only tantalized with false hope."

Saul looked up. A crafty gleam shot into his eyes as he started to
speak, then he repressed the words on his lips and remained silent.

After a long while, however, he began hesitantly:

"There's oil there still--and there's places where it would pay. That's
why I'm itchin' to go back. With what I know now and those fools there
don't know, I could get rich; big rich, and this damned young Wellver
stands barrin' my way."

"Perhaps,"--the German spoke tentatively--"we could do business
together. I go to the States shortly mein-self."

"Business, hell!" Saul Fulton's hand smote the table. "A stranger
couldn't swing things. Folks would jump prices on you. They suspicion
strangers, there."

He sat silent for a time, and the German puffed contemplatively at his
cigarette. Outside somewhere a band was playing. Above the patio where
they sat at table the stars were large and tranquil. A fountain plashed
in silvery tinkles.

Saul Fulton's face grew sinister with its thoughts, and when at last he
spoke again it was with the air of a man who has debated to a conclusion
the problem that besets him and who, having decided, sets his foot into
the Rubicon of action.

"I'm goin' back there, myself. There's ways an' means of gettin' rid of
brash trouble-makers, an' if any man knows 'em in an' out, an' back an'
forth, it's me."

Otto Gehr shrugged his white-coated shoulders.

"The fit should survive," he made answer.

Saul raised his almost empty glass. "Here's Luck," he said. "This
Wellver lad is marked down for what's comin' to him."

CHAPTER XXXIII

Morgan's car was making the most rapid progress through the downtown
traffic that the law allowed, and his electric energies were fretting
for greater speed. The days were all too short for him with their
present demands, and he forced himself with the merciless rigour of a
man who is both overseer and slave. Now he was allowing himself just
forty-five minutes for luncheon at the club, and back at the office men
and matters were waiting.

He found gratification in the deference with which