“But in dealing with such an artful old fox as Jared Whitemore we have to provide against the unusual and the unexpected. It was distinctly unusual for him to send a boy like Vance Thornton to close up his options--yet that is what he has done, and we should never have got on to it if it had not been for the uncommon shrewdness of our man Vyce. If he has done this, there is no reason why he hasn’t instructed the boy to come down here after he has finished with the options and try to find out whether the press reports concerning these elevators are really founded on facts, or whether they have been cooked up by the opposition forces.” “And do you think that young fellow Thornton is smart enough for such a slick job as that?” asked Mr. Taggart, with a sneer. “Do I? Well, say, he’s all right, and don’t you make any mistake on that head,” said Dudley in a convincing tone as he gave the rim of his hat a flip backward. “Carrington says he’s smart enough to be dangerous, and Carrington is no fool.” “Yet he’s only a boy, you say?” said Mr. Taggart, skeptically. “That’s all right. He was clever enough to block a little game we put up on him in Kansas City, and he didn’t even suspect our intentions, either.” “How was that?” asked Mr. Taggart, with some interest. “Carrington came down himself from Chicago to help the thing along, and brought one of his handsomest lady stenographers along to pump the boy dry. And she did it, too; oh, yes, she did it--nit! And we thought he would be such an easy proposition. We wanted to find out all his plans and get possession of the options we supposed he carried about in his clothes.” “And you failed, eh?” “We failed all right. He didn’t have as much as a toothpick about him, and so, after dosing his coffee, for he doesn’t drink a drop of liquor, we had all our trouble for nothing. The girl went into a spasm of admiration over Thornton’s cleverness in being prepared for the unexpected, while Carrington was madder than a whole nest of hornets. I took him to his hotel and put him to bed, and that’s the last I’ve seen of him.” “Well, now, you hear me,” said the man in the fedora hat, thumping the side of the bunch of spiles behind which Vance was listening to this enlightening conversation, “if he comes down here and gets away with a grain of information as big as one grain of those five million bushels stored in these, five elevators, I’ll give you leave to kick me from here to the mouth of the Mississippi.” The remark was emphatic and forcible, and there was not the slightest doubt that Mr. Taggart meant every word of it, yet is it any wonder that Vance Thornton, under the circumstances, grinned as he had never grinned before in all his life? CHAPTER VIII. THE MAN FROM THE WEST.