"All we need now is the water and we are going to have that in another nine months when I shall have a clear deed to the Bar L-M. Garth and myself have gone ahead as I told you that we would, taking options on every acre we could get in Dry Valley. Before many days we shall virtually control the whole of the valley, just the three of us. Between us Garth and I have expended upwards of fifty thousand dollars in the last five weeks in options and out-right purchases." "Let me see the papers," said Hume shortly. Leland went to the safe and taking out a number of papers, handed them to Hume. "All right as far as it goes," Hume said when at length he had finished his careful examination of the documents and had tossed them to the table. "You haven't got the Norfolk place nor the Ettinger place. What's the matter? They are more important to us than all the rest put together. Did they smell a rat?" "I don't know. I am confident of closing with Norfolk in a few days, although I may have to pay him five dollars an acre more than I offered any one else. Ettinger is holding out for seventy-five thousand dollars, cash." "Then he does smell a rat!" Hume's fist came crashing down upon the mantelpiece. "By God, somebody's been talking too much!" "Mr. Hume," Leland reminded him sternly, "may I call to your attention the fact that nobody knows a thing about this matter excepting yourself, Garth and me? I haven't so much as told my wife--" "You?" cried Hume hotly. "Who said that you had? You've got brains enough to hold your tongue. That's why I came to you in the first place. But Conway here--" He swung suddenly upon Garth, his eyes flaming, his face distorted with wrath. Before either of the two men had guessed his purpose he strode swiftly across the room, and gripping Conway's shoulders with his two big hands jerked him to his feet. "Conway," he snarled, his face close to the others, his eyes burning, his breath hot in Garth's blanched face, "you queer this deal with your infernal gab and I'll--" He broke off sharply, flinging Conway backward from him so that the smaller man's body crashed against the wall. "Hume!" cried Leland angrily. "I'll have no quarrelling in my house. If you can't act--"