“What?” cried Garwood, and straightened in his chair as if he had received a shock, as indeed he had.
“Yes,” said Mr. Ackerman. “You remember she was in Falls City for some weeks this summer. I heard somewhere—you know how these things get about—that she and Kent were—well, in fact, I heard that they were together a great deal.”
Garwood rapped out a man’s size oath. “Why didn’t you tell me this before?”
“Knowing Miss Edith’s penchant for innocent summer flirtations I attached no importance to it,” smiled Mr. Ackerman.
Garwood sat frowning. “You may be right. That girl would flirt with a man’s shadow. However, I’ll put a stop to this at once. Now see here, Ackerman, you’ve bungled the Kent matter so far.”
“I have not,” denied Mr. Ackerman indignantly. “He simply would not sell. That’s not my fault.”
Garwood dismissed the protest with an impatient gesture. “The fact remains that I haven’t got what I’m after. Crooks’s business and Kent’s are all that prevent us from controlling the lumber market on the O. & N. and the Peninsular. Crooks is pretty strong, but this winter must break Kent, and after that we’ll get Crooks. We absolutely must have the water powers which Kent owns. He has a fortune in them, if he only knew it and had money enough to develop them, and we also need his mills. We must have these things, and there must be no mistake about it.”
“If he doesn’t deliver the logs he has contracted to deliver——” Ackerman began, but Garwood cut him short.
“It must be made impossible for him to deliver them. If he makes good it gives him a new lease of life and delays our plans; but if he doesn’t cut the logs he can’t deliver them, whether his drive is hung up or not.”
“It was against my advice that his tender for the Wind River limits went through.”