He paused and the momentary fire died out of his eyes.
"I'm too old a dog for new tricks though," he added dejectedly, "and there's no one else to do it."
"How could it be done?" demanded Glory rousing herself from her trance. "Between them they hold all the power, don't they?"
"As far as I can make out," Cappeze explained with the interest of the legalistic mind for tackling an abstruse problem, "Spurrier had completed his arch as to one of his two purposes--all except its keystone. He had yet to gain a passage way through Brother Hawkins' land. With that he would have held the completed right-of-way--and it's the only one. The other gang of pirates hold the ability to get a charter but no right of way over which to use it. Now the man who could deliver Brother Hawkins' concession would have a key. He could force Spurrier's crowd to agree to almost anything, and with Spurrier's crowd he could wring a compromise from the others. Bud Hawkins is like the delegate at a convention who can break a deadlock. God knows I'd love to tackle it--but it's too late for me."
Glory had come to her feet, and stood an incarnation of combat.
"It's not too late for me," she said quietly. "Perhaps I'm too crude to go into John Spurrier's world of cultivated people but I'm shrewd enough to go into his world of business!"
"You!" exclaimed the father in astonishment, then after a moment an eager light slowly dawned in his eyes and he broke out vehemently: "By God in Heaven, girl, I believe you're the man for the job!"
"Call Brother Hawkins in," commanded Glory. "We need his help."
Before he reached the door old Cappeze turned on his heel.
"Glory," he said, "we've need to move out of this house and go back to my place. Here we're dwelling under a dishonest roof."
"I'm going to leave it," she responded quickly, "but I'm going farther away than that. I'm going to study oil and I'm going to do it in the Bluegrass lowlands."
John Spurrier stepped from the train at Carnettsville into a life that had been revolutionized. At last he had succeeded in leaving his German exile. His own country was in the war but he, with the equipment of a soldier, bore a dishonored name, which would bar him from a commission. Here he found the development of his dreams realized, but by other hands than his own.
