The reference was to the town site of Sentinel, a half section of prairie which had been bought for three thousand dollars and sold as town lots on paper at a couple of hundred thousand to confiding, distant investors. It was still prairie, and apt to remain so. Carrol had engineered the deal, and he would have blushed if he had not forgotten how. As it was, he smiled sourly.
"I wish I could. Is this McCrae a friend of yours?"
"Put it that way," Farwell replied, frowning at the quizzical expression of Sleeman's eye. "He doesn't want to sell, but I want him to have the chance of refusing real money. He may take it, or he may not. Anyway, I make it as a personal request."
Carrol eyed him for a moment. He knew Farwell's reputation for uncompromising hostility to any one who thwarted his plans, accidentally or otherwise. Also Farwell was a good man. He was bound to rise. Some day, he, Carrol, might require his help and he kept a sharp eye on possibilities of that nature. So he said:
"It isn't business, but to oblige you, Farwell—all right, I'll take the chance that he won't accept. But it's sudden death, mind. No dickering. He accepts, or he doesn't. If not, he'll get just dry-belt prices with the rest when they surrender."
And so a few days afterward Farwell, armed with a check representing one hundred and fifty thousand dollars of lawful money, procured because he considered it likely to have a good moral effect, sought Talapus Ranch and Donald McCrae. And McCrae, as he feared, turned the offer down.
Farwell had calculated on producing the check at the proper psychological moment, in practically stampeding him. The trouble was that the psychological moment failed to arrive. McCrae showed no symptoms of vacillation. The issue was never in doubt.
"I told you before," he said, "I don't want to sell, and I won't sell."
"It's a hundred and fifty thousand cold cash—your own value," urged Farwell. "At 6 per cent. it's nine thousand a year from now to eternity for you and your wife and children. If you refuse, the best you can hope for is dry-land prices. It's your only salvation, I tell you."
"My word is passed," said McCrae. "Even if it wasn't, I wouldn't be harried off the little bit of earth that's mine. It's good of you to take this trouble—I judge you had trouble—but it's not a bit of use."