"At present I'd say nothing about this matter to any one. Later on you may be able to use it in squaring accounts," the engineer advised. "I hope so," was the answer, with a bitter note. "But talking would only hurt Mary, not Ed Sorenson. Whatever the Sorensons do is all right, you know, because they're rich. The daughter of a poor man like me would get all the black end of the gossip; and I can't lift a finger, that's what grinds me, unless I go out and shoot him, then hang for it. For the bank's got a mortgage on my little bunch of stock, and on my ranch here, and Sorenson, of course, is the bank. Gordon and Vorse and a few others are in it too, but he's the bull of the herd. If I opened my mouth about his son, I'd be kicked off of Terry Creek, lock, stock and barrel. That's the way Sorenson keeps all of us poor devils, white and Mexican, eating out of his hand. I've just been poor since I came here a boy; the gang in San Mateo won't let anybody but themselves have a chance. And I reckon old man Sorenson wouldn't care much if his boy had ruined my girl. Cuss him a little, maybe; that would be all. But I won't forget the whelp. Some day my chance will come to play even." "Sure; if one just keeps quiet and waits," Steele agreed. "Well, I must hit the trail. If you want work any time, come over to the dam; we can always use a man with a team." Johnson nodded. "After haying is done, maybe. And remember, I'm much obliged to you for looking after my little girl. I won't forget that, either." He reached up diffidently and shook hands with the engineer. Weir's grip was sympathetic and sincere. CHAPTER IV A SECRET CONFERENCE On a certain afternoon Felipe Martinez, the lean and restless attorney who had acted as the Mexican workmen's mouthpiece, observed through the broad plate-glass window of the San Mateo Cattle Company's office an incident that greatly interested him. For the moment he forgot the resentment kindled by Sorenson's abrupt refusal and brutal words when he asked for the nomination for county attorney. The election was in the autumn; the nomination was equivalent to election; and Felipe considered that he had too long been kept apart from that particular spoil. Martinez had once had a slight difference with the banker, and now outrageously Sorenson had recalled it. He had stated that Martinez should hold no political office; he gave offices only to men who did exactly as he advised; his exact words were that the Mexican was "tricky and no good." And picking up his hat Sorenson who had that day returned home from the east went out of the bank, leaving Martinez to stare out of the window and meditatively twist a point of his silky black mustache.