“Well, you’re going back in, aren’t you, after a while?”
“I hadn’t planned ter,” said the young man. “I come out because I wanted ter. I’m a-goin’ on Outside because I think I’d orter. I’ve got to work. What I want is a chancet.”
“Well, I’ve got a chance for you.”
“How do ye mean, stranger?”
“Near as I can tell, you’re the very man I’m looking for. I’m the manager and vice-president of the land company that’s been buying stuff up in here for the last twenty years. We’ve got big holdings up in there—on the Laurel and Newfound, and the Rattlesnake and Buffalo, and Big Creek and Hell-fer-Sartan—we’ve got timber or coal or both located all through there. Now, listen—I’m in here now because there’s talk of oil being found in there. Do you know anything about that?”
“They said they found some along some of the creeks not fur from whar I lived at.”
“Have you ever heard anything about the railroad?”
“Yes, I was huntin’ on Hell-fer-Sartin not more’n two months ago, an’ I seen the stakes. There hain’t no other way they kin git through but only jest that one.”
“What is there in the way of moonshining going on in there? Any danger for an outsider to go in there?”
“I don’t know nothin’ at all about that,” said David Joslin. “If I did I wouldn’t tell ye.”