Who knows ?" "Got anything else up your sleeve ?" Behind Mallow's dark glasses his eyes could be dimly seen, and they were active with curiosity.
"Plenty.

But we have enough here to start on.

First, I want these various leases, then I want a company promoted and a well started on that twenty we talked about." For some time longer the conspirators busied themselves over the details of their plans, and Gray was beginning to feel some satisfaction at his rate of progress when an interruption occurred that threatened to delay action and even to rob him of the services of the two partners.

That interruption took the form of a call from a group of highly excited and indignant purchasers of stock in the Desert Scorpion Company, that promotion in which Professor Mallow had assisted on the morning of Gray's arrival.

These stockholders swarmed into the office, bringing with them an air of angry menace; they were noisy; they all talked at once.
From out of the confusion it soon became apparent that they had a real grievance, and one which called for immediate satisfaction; moreover, it was made plain that the callers cared little what form that satisfaction took, whether tar and feathers or a rope and a lamp-post.
They had been sold, victimized, flimflammed, skinned; the scorpion had stung them and the poison was boiling in their veins.