All through supper he talked on in a like strain. Ethel and Jack listening in silence. Then, after the supper dishes were cleared away, and the old man had settled down, pipe in mouth, in front of the kitchen stove, Harrison had his say.
"Look here, Jim," he said abruptly, "I did somethin' last night that I suppose is goin' to get you mad. I met Abe Peters walkin' home, an' he tells me he's got one of those eastern sharps stayin' with him, investigatin' likely claims, Abe says, with the idea to buy 'em if they comes up to standard. Abe says he starts to tell him about the Ethel, an' the man seems to be better posted than Abe is himself. Anyways, we fixed it up that Abe's goin' to bring him over to-night after grub, an' we'll have a little talk with him. Can't do no harm, an' the way things is goin' now ain't right to none of us; not to you nor to me nor to the girl here, neither. So you want to treat 'em civil when they come."
The old man straightened up in his chair with a glare of resentment, and banged the table with his clenched fist.
"No, sir," he exclaimed, "I won't see him or have nothing to do with him, and neither will you. I'll have no man nosing into my claim, or talking of buying it, either. It ain't a mite of use, Jack. The claim ain't for sale, and I won't have 'em coming round bothering me about it. You can get rid of Abe your own way, but I don't let him set foot in this house, him or his mining sharp or anybody else. I won't do it, Jack, for you nor no man."
Harrison's jaw set with a resolution quieter, perhaps, but every bit as determined as Mason's.
"Jim," he said, "that talk don't go. I've stuck to you and the mine for two years now, fair and square, and it looks like I'd got a right to some say about what we're going to do. Now, I've been figuring it out pretty careful, and this is just about the way we're fixed. Supposin', just for argument, we strike the lode to-morrow, why, even at that we can't ever develop that mine alone. It stands to reason we've got to have an awful pile of money back of us. Give us all the men we want, and all the machinery, and God knows what else, and then it's goin' to take two years and more to make her a dividend payer. No, sir, we've got to have money, Jim, and the only way to get it's to hitch up with some one like this cuss that's out here now. We can look out for our end all the time. You hold out for a big lot of stock, and getting yourself appointed superintendent, and me assistant, and that way we'll be doing right by the mine, and we'll get plenty rich, too. So that's sense, Jim, and nothing but sense, and you've got to talk to this man to-night, or, by God, Jim, I'll get out to-morrow, as sure as we're sitting here, and leave you to go it alone."
Mason, completely taken aback, fairly gasped. Suddenly he had realized, perhaps for the first time, his utter dependence on the younger man. "You—you wouldn't really do that, Jack," he faltered tremulously.
Harrison, more from the old man's manner than from the words themselves, felt that the victory was won. He nodded decisively.
"That's just what I'd do," he answered firmly. "I don't mean to go against you any way at all, Jim, but I know what's common sense, and you'll see it yourself some day, too. I'm not bluffing. I'd hate to do it, but I mean every word just the way I say."
The old man sighed, as if half the joy had suddenly gone out of his life. Then he nodded with resignation.