He leaped into the
canal and wallowed across.
"Get off, my land!" he growled. "Get off!"
The gunman was running for dear life down the spoil bank. On the
opposite side his companions were in full flight. Payne did not
follow. He stood and watched them, outraged to the marrow. "And keep
off, too!" he shouted grimly. "Tell your lawyer, tell your sheriff,
tell 'em all, keep off!"
XXVIII
"It's impossible!"
Roger was too stunned to grasp the true significance of the situation
at once.
"The Senator's company wouldn't have sold me this land if there was a
suit on it."
Then, little by little, the facts began to clarify in his mind.
Connors, the lawyer, was Senator Fairclothe's law partner; Fairclothe
had been anxious to see the tract drained.
"Oh, my God!" he groaned, "Are they that rotten!"
"But you had the title searched before you bought?" said Higgins.
"Of course. Right back to the first Spanish land grant, and there
wasn't a flaw in it."
"Then those fellows are stung."
"Pooh! Those cheap toughs. They're nothing but tools. There's
probably been a false transfer made to their names, but that's all;
they were picked because they were fighters. Well, whoever picked them
hasn't got the least suspicion of what he's started.
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