The gloomy satisfaction with which Uncle Ben regarded this peroration—a satisfaction that actually appeared to be equal to the revelation itself—only corroborated the master's indignant doubts.
“Come,” he said, impulsively taking the paper from Uncle Ben's reluctant hand, “how much of this is a concoction of yours and Rupe's—and how much is a true story? Do you really mean?”—
“Hold on, Mr. Ford!” interrupted Uncle Ben, suddenly fumbling in the breast-pocket of his red shirt, “I reckoned on your being a little hard with me, remembering our first talk 'bout these things—so I allowed I'd bring you some proof.” Slowly extracting a long legal envelope from his pocket, he opened it, and drew out two or three crisp certificates of stock, and handed them to the master.
“Ther's one hundred shares made out to Benj Daubigny. I'd hev brought you over the deed of the land too, but ez it's rather hard to read off-hand, on account of the law palaver, I've left it up at the shanty to tackle at odd times by way of practising. But ef you like we'll go up thar, and I'll show it to you.”
Still haunted by his belief in Uncle Ben's small duplicities, Mr. Ford hesitated. These were certainly bona fide certificates of stock made out to “Daubigny.” But he had never actually accepted Uncle Ben's statement of his identity with that person, and now it was offered as a corroboration of a still more improbable story. He looked at Uncle Ben's simple face slightly deepening in color under his scrutiny—perhaps with conscious guilt.
“Have you made anybody your confidant? Rupe, for instance?” he asked significantly.
“In course not,” replied Uncle Ben with a slight stiffening of wounded pride. “On'y yourself, Mr. Ford, and the young feller Stacey from the bank—ez was obligated to know it. In fact, I wos kalkilatin' to ask you to help me talk to him about that yer boundary land.”
Mr. Ford's scepticism was at last staggered. Any practical joke or foolish complicity between the agent of the bank and a man like Uncle Ben was out of the question, and if the story were his own sole invention, he would have scarcely dared to risk so accessible and uncompromising a denial as the agent had it in his power to give.
He held out his hand to Uncle Ben. “Let me congratulate you,” he said heartily, “and forgive me if your story really sounded so wonderful I couldn't quite grasp it. Now let me ask you something more. Have you had any reason for keeping this a secret, other than your fear of confessing that you violated a few bigoted and idiotic mining rules—which, after all, are binding only upon sentiment—and which your success has proved to be utterly impractical?”
“There WAS another reason, Mr. Ford,” said Uncle Ben, wiping away an embarrassed smile with the back of his hand, “that is, to be square with you, WHY I thought of consultin' you. I didn't keer to have McKinstry, and”—he added hurriedly, “in course Harrison, too, know that I bought up the title to thur boundary.”