Part 24 (1/2)
”Well,” he said, ”your query is rather sudden, Judge, but still I can name you a price. I will state frankly, however, that I believe it to be over your head. We have several times refused to sell to Colonel Pennington for a hundred thousand dollars.”
”Naturally that little dab of timber is worth more to Pennington than to anybody else. However, my client has given me instructions to go as high as a hundred thousand if necessary to get the property.”
”What!”
”I said it. One hundred thousand dollars of the present standard weight and fineness.”
Judge Moore's last statement swept away Bryce's suspicions. He required now no further evidence that, regardless of the ident.i.ty of the Judge's client, that client could not possibly be Colonel Seth Pennington or any one acting for him, since only the night before Pennington had curtly refused to buy the property for fifty thousand dollars. For a moment Bryce stared stupidly at his visitor. Then he recovered his wits.
”Sold!” he almost shouted, and after the fas.h.i.+on of the West extended his hand to clinch the bargain. The Judge shook it solemnly. ”The Lord loveth a quick trader,” he declared, and reached into the capacious breast pocket of his Prince Albert coat. ”Here's the deed already made out in favour of myself, as trustee.” He winked knowingly.
”Client's a bit modest, I take it,” Bryce suggested.
”Oh, very. Of course I'm only hazarding a guess, but that guess is that my client can afford the gamble and is figuring on giving Pennington a pain where he never knew it to ache him before. In plain English, I believe the Colonel is in for a razooing at the hands of somebody with a small grouch against him.”
”May the Lord strengthen that somebody's arm,” Bryce breathed fervently. ”If your client can afford to hold out long enough, he'll be able to buy Pennington's Squaw Creek timber at a bargain.”
”My understanding is that such is the programme.”
Bryce reached for the deed, then reached for his hat. ”If you'll be good enough to wait here, Judge Moore, I'll run up to the house and get my father to sign this deed. The Valley of the Giants is his personal property, you know. He didn't include it in his a.s.sets when incorporating the Cardigan Redwood Lumber Company.”
A quarter of an hour later he returned with the deed duly signed by John Cardigan and witnessed by Bryce; whereupon the Judge carelessly tossed his certified check for a hundred thousand dollars on Bryce's desk and departed whistling ”Turkey in the Straw.” Bryce reached for the telephone and called up Colonel Pennington.
”Bryce Cardigan speaking,” he began, but the Colonel cut him short.
”My dear, impulsive young friend,” he interrupted in oleaginous tones, ”how often do you have to be told that I am not quite ready to buy that quarter-section?”
”Oh,” Bryce retorted, ”I merely called up to tell you that every dollar and every a.s.set you have in the world, including your heart's blood, isn't sufficient to buy the Valley of the Giants from us now.”
”Eh? What's that? Why?”
”Because, my dear, overcautious, and thoroughly unprincipled enemy, it was sold five minutes ago for the tidy sum of one hundred thousand dollars, and if you don't believe me, come over to my office and I'll let you feast your eyes on the certified check.”
He could hear a distinct gasp. After an interval of five seconds, however, the Colonel recovered his poise. ”I congratulate you,” he purred. ”I suppose I'll have to wait a little longer now, won't I?
Well--patience is my middle name. Au revoir.”
The Colonel hung up. His hard face was ashen with rage, and he stared at a calendar on the wall with his cold, phidian stare. However, he was not without a generous stock of optimism. ”Somebody has learned of the low state of the Cardigan fortune,” he mused, ”and taken advantage of it to induce the old man to sell at last. They're figuring on selling to me at a neat profit. And I certainly did overplay my hand last night. However, there's nothing to do now except sit tight and wait for the new owner's next move.”
Meanwhile, in the general office of the Cardigan Redwood Lumber Company, joy was rampant. Bryce Cardigan was doing a buck and wing dance around the room, while Moira McTavish, with her back to her tall desk, watched him, in her eyes a tremendous joy and a sweet, yearning glow of adoration that Bryce was too happy and excited to notice.
Suddenly he paused before her. ”Moira, you're a lucky girl,” he declared. ”I thought this morning you were going back to a kitchen in a logging-camp. It almost broke my heart to think of fate's swindling you like that.” He put his arm around her and gave her a brotherly hug. ”It's autumn in the woods, Moira, and all the underbrush is golden.”
She smiled, though it was winter in her heart.
CHAPTER XX
Not the least of the traits which formed s.h.i.+rley Sumner's character was pride. Proud people quite usually are fiercely independent and meticulously honest--and s.h.i.+rley's pride was monumental. Hers was the pride of lineage, of womanhood, of an a.s.sured station in life, combined with that other pride which is rather difficult of definition without verbosity and is perhaps better expressed in the terse and illuminating phrase ”a dead-game sport.” Unlike her precious relative, unlike the majority of her s.e.x, s.h.i.+rley had a wonderfully balanced sense of the eternal fitness of things; her code of honour resembled that of a very gallant gentleman. She could love well and hate well.
A careful a.n.a.lysis of s.h.i.+rley's feelings toward Bryce Cardigan immediately following the incident in Pennington's woods, had showed her that under more propitious circ.u.mstances she might have fallen in love with that tempestuous young man in sheer recognition of the many lovable and manly qualities she had discerned in him. As an offset to the credit side of Bryce's account with her, however, there appeared certain debits in the consideration of which s.h.i.+rley always lost her temper and was immediately quite certain she loathed the unfortunate man.