Nan of Music Mountain | Page 4

you know, owns the line.
And the net from the specie shipments equals the net on an ordinary
railroad division. But we must have a man to run that line that can curb
the disorders along the route. Calabasas Valley, de Spain, is a bad
place."
"Is it?" de Spain asked as naively as if he had never heard of Calabasas,
though Jeffries was nervily stating a fact bald and notorious to both.
"There are a lot of bad men there," Jeffries went on, "who are bad
simply because they've never had a man to show them."
"The last general manager was killed there, wasn't he?"
"Not in the valley, no. He was shot at Calabasas Inn."
"Would that make very much difference in the way he felt about it?"
Jeffries, with an effort, laughed. "That's all right, Henry! They won't get
you." Again he extended his finger dogmatically: "If I thought they
would, I wouldn't send you down there."

"Thank you."
"You are young, ambitious: four thousand a year isn't hanging from
every telegraph-pole; it is almost twice what they are paying me."
"You're not getting shot at."
"No man, Henry, knows the hour of his death. No man in the high
country knows when he is to be made a target that you well understand.
Men are shot down in this country that have no more idea of getting
killed than I have or you have."
"Don't include me. I have a pretty good idea of getting killed right
away the minute I take this job."
"We have temporized with this Calabasas out fit long enough,"
declared Jeffries, dropping his mask at last. "Deaf Sandusky, Logan,
and that squint-eyed thief, Dave Sassoon all hold-up men, every one of
them! Henry, I'm putting you in on that job because you've got nerve,
because you can shoot, because I don't think they can get you and
paying you a whaling big salary to straighten things out along the
Spanish Sinks. Do you know, Henry " Jeffries leaned forward and
lowered his tone. Master of the art of persuading and convincing, of
hammering and pounding, of swaying the doubting and deciding the
undecided, the strong-eyed mountain-man looked his best as he held
the younger man under his spell. "Do you know," he repeated, "I
suspect that Morgan Gap bunch are really behind and beneath a lot of
this deviltry around Calabasas? You take Gale Morgan: why, he trains
with Dave Sassoon; take his uncle, Duke: Sassoon never is in trouble
but what Duke will help him out." Jeffries exploded with a slight but
forcible expletive. "Was there ever a thief or a robber driven into
Morgan's Gap that didn't find sympathy and shelter with some of the
Morgans? I believe they are in every game pulled on the Thief River
stages."
"As bad as that?"
Jeffries turned to his desk. "Ask John Lefever."

De Spain had a long talk with John. But John was a poor adviser. He
advised no one on any subject. He whistled, he hummed a tune, if his
hat was on he took it off, and if it happened to be off, which was
unusual, he put it on. He extended his arm, at times, suddenly, as if on
the brink of a positive assertion. But he decided nothing, and asserted
nothing. If he talked, he talked well and energetically; but the end of a
talk usually found him and de Spain about where they began. So it was
on this trying day for Lefever was not able wholly to hide the upset ting
of his confidence of victory, and his humiliation at the now more
distant yells from the Calabasas and Morgan Gap victors.
But concerning the Morgans and their friends, Lefever, to whom
Jeffries had rudely referred the subject at the close of his talk with de
Spain, did abandon his habitual reticence. "Rustlers, thieves, robbers,
coiners, outlaws!" he exclaimed energetically.
"Is this because they got your money to-day, John?" asked de Spain.
"Never mind my money. I've got a new job with nothing to do, and
plenty of cash."
De Spain asked what the job was. "On the stages," announced Lefever.
"I am now general superintendent of the Thief River Line."
"What does that mean?"
"It means that I act for the reorganization committee in buying alfalfa
for the horses and smokeless pipes for the guards. I am to be your
assistant."
"I'm not going to take that job, John."
"Yes, you are."
"Not if I know it. I am going back to Medicine Bend to-night." Lefever
took off his hat and twirled it skilfully on one hand, humming softly the
while. "John," asked de Spain after a pause, "who is that girl that shot
against me this afternoon?"

"That," answered Lefever, thinking, shocked, of Jeffries's words,