Crump was half-way to his limit -- meaning the point of falling out of his bench at the tavern - when the other two arrived as scheduled. They ordered their own whiskies and took a small table in the corner, the most remote corner available where eavesdropping could not happen accidentally and would be plain if done intentionally. Crump resented leaving his accustomed roost, but he bore the irritation in silence, curious to know what it would cause a Batelle landowner to want to talk to him and Matthew Stanford at the same damn time.

Montgomery had a vaguely commanding air about him, made up mostly of body mass and agedness which combined to make him appear patrician and experienced or seedy and self-indulgent, depending on the perspective of the listener. He had a deep voice which rattled out of a barrel chest as though the owner were tumbling gravel mix. He had mean eyes that were as cold as the night ice that still formed on the backwater edges of the river, even though the main section was running high with the upstream melt. And he didn't shift them off your face until you blinked or felt like you had shriveled up.

"What I am saying to you gentlemen is that I am not going to stand for any more of this secret invasion, outrageous lack of discipline and respect, this stealthy underhanded theft of property I paid good money for. And I am not alone. There are owners up and down the river who want someone to DO something about it. I am not a big talker. I want to get things done, or I will do them myself. " He threw back the last third of his whiskey and wiped his gray mottled whiskers with the back of a hand the size of a cantaloupe.

The two men listening to him stared at him, silent, not arguing or responding, but thinking furiously.