"What other part of the county?" Mrs. Sampson inquired.

She had laid down her sewing and was listening intently, with a look of
keen intelligence, the tips of her long and rather large fingers
pressed closely together. She hated Irons devoutly, but his scheme
meant financial profit to her, and various bills were troublesomely
overdue.

"That's what we have to discover. When we find out, I'll let you know.
The other syndicate have been deucedly close-mouthed about their plans,
but of course they can't keep dark a great while longer; and in any
case I am on the track of the information."

"And what," Mrs. Sampson asked, with an air of innocence too obviously
artificial, "am I expected to do?"

Irons glanced at her with a wink, taking in her plain, vivacious face
with its sparkling eyes, her fine figure, and stylish, if somewhat too
pronounced, presence.

"The old game," he said. "Show a tender and sisterly interest in a few
of the country members. There are one or two men from the western part
of the state that we want to capture at once before the thing is
started. Do you know anybody in that region?"

"My father, Judge Welsh," she answered with an amusing touch amid her
frankness of the air with which she always mentioned her ancestors in
society, "had numerous connections there."