Fiddlefoot by Luke; Short

“What would happen then if I threw away a few thousand dollars by cutting rates until they couldn’t meet them?”
    â€œYou’d ruin them,” Tess said quietly.
    Rhino detected the censure in her words, and he raised his eyebrows. “And if I do?”
    â€œI like them,” Tess said simply. “They’re good men.”
    Rhino chuckled. “It’s your privilege to like them—after working hours.”
    Tess was silent, appalled by what was shaping up. She said now in a quick and curious voice, “You mean you’d break them to make money, Mr. Hulst?”
    Rhino smiled, and nodded. “I’ll throw away up to ten thousand cutting rates. By that time, they’ll be out of business and we can pick up their wagons cheap, maybe the whole outfit. After that, I can hoist rates and make back my ten thousand.”
    Tess sat utterly motionless now. She was remembering Jonas McGarrity, that big, loose-framed, gangling man who had spent a score of nights telling her of his deep ambitions, watching her to see if he stirred affection or love in her, and finally being content with her friendship. He was a good man, simple and kind and tolerant, and all his homely hopes along with his brother’s were doomed now by Rhino’s greed. It was the heartlessness of Rhino’s plan that frightened her. If a man with a few thousand dollars in the bank could drive two other men to ruin, something was wrong. It was as if she had glimpsed something black and slimy and nameless that she was not meant to look upon, and she turned away from it instinctively.
    â€œWell?” Rhino said. “What’s wrong with that idea?”
    â€œWhat do I do about it?” Tess asked reluctantly. She would not look at him; she kept pleating the folds of her drab skirt.
    â€œGo see the McGarritys. Tell them what we’re going to do. Unless they’re fools, they’ll see they’re licked. Get their offer on the whole outfit and bring it to me, and we’ll see how it looks.”
    Tess stood up, looking at a point beyond Rhino’s head. “Isn’t that a job for a man?” she asked woodenly.
    Rhino shook his head. “You, my dear, are running the freighting end. I supply only the money and advice.”
    Tess said good night and went back to her desk. Shinner had shoved his books in the safe, and now he bade her a precise good evening as he went out. Tess sat down slowly at her desk and stared at the dingy wall opposite. There was a price on everything, she thought bitterly, and this was the price on her job, that she must ruin the McGarritys. She remembered now that the McGarritys yesterday had come in to rent four teams for a special hauling job of mine machinery to Meeker, the mining camp back in the mountains. They would be home tomorrow, and tomorrow night, she knew, she would have to face them.
    She heard someone mounting the steps and turned to see Hugh Nunnally tramp in, heading for Rhino’s office. He grinned lazily and said, “You’ve had enough for today, Tess. Go home.”
    â€œOn my way,” Tess said.
    Hugh went on through to the office and Tess stared at the corridor doorway. It seemed to her now that it wasn’t just a plain doorway in a shabby, ill-lit office any more but an entrance to a dark cave where a cunning old man wove his secret schemes and laughed at pity.
    She rose now and swiftly cleared her desk, and she could barely control the impulse to get out of here and as far away as her legs would take her. She had just twenty-four hours to get used to the idea of being a partner in a crime. I’ll think of a way around it , she thought then, and she wondered desperately if she could.

Chapter 6
    The holding corral Frank elected to work out from lay on the upper Elk among the aspens, Saber’s highest range. Here, the Elk broke out of a steep-walled canyon into a flat hay meadow, and a high fence of peeling aspen poles