Page:Bedford-Jones--The Mardi Gras Mystery.djvu/209

 the option, a signed memorandum will be entirely sufficient."

The farmer regarded oil as a joke, and said so. The hundred dollars, however, and the prospective eighth interest, were sufficient to induce him to part with the option without any delay. He was only too glad to get the thing done with at once, and to pocket Gramont's money.

Gramont drove away, and was just coming to the Ledanois drive when he suddenly threw on the brakes and halted the car, listening. From somewhere ahead of him—the Gumberts place, he thought instantly—echoed a shot, and several faint shouts. Then silence again.

Gramont paused, indecisive. The sheriff was making an arrest, he thought. A hundred possibilities flitted through his brain, suggested by the sinister combination of Memphis Izzy, known even to Hammond as a prince among crooks, with this secluded place leased by "inventors." Bootlegging? Counterfeiting?

As he paused, thus, he suddenly started; he was certain that he had caught the tones of Hammond, as though in a sudden uplifted