McNamara allowed access to none
but his minions, so the partners knew but vaguely of what happened
on their property, even though, under fiction of law, it was being
worked for their protection.
No steps regarding a speedy hearing of the case were allowed, and
the collusion between Judge Stillman and the receiver had become
so generally recognized that there were uneasy mutterings and
threats in many quarters. Yet, although the politician had by now
virtually absorbed all the richest properties in the district and
worked them through his hirelings, the people of Nome as a whole
did not grasp the full turpitude of the scheme nor the system's
perfect working.
Strange to say, Dextry, the fire-eater, had assumed an Oriental
patience quite foreign to his peppery disposition, and spent much
of his time in the hills prospecting.
On this day, as the clouds broke, about noon, close down on the
angry horizon a drift of smoke appeared, shortly resolving itself
into a steamer. She lay to in the offing, and through his glasses
Glenister saw that it was the Roanoke. As the hours passed and no
boat put off, he tried to hire a crew, but the longshoremen spat
wisely and shook their heads as they watched the surf.
"There's the devil of an undertow settin' along this beach," they
told him, "and the water's too cold to drownd in comfortable.
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