“You always were a lucky dog,” declared the other. “If you land it you ought to clear fifty thousand inside of five years.”
“A hundred. I intend holding for a cold hundred thousand. There has been talk of the town building a steam plant already; but water is of course away ahead of that, and they are sure to swing to it. And this fall is the only one within ten miles of Haddowville.”
“Didn’t I tell you!” exclaimed Jack in a whisper. “Doing somebody out of something, whatever it is.”
“You might build the plant yourself, and hold the town up for whatever you wished,” the second speaker went on.
“Yes, I could. But I prefer the ready cash. That has always been my plan of doing business. No; I figure on disposing of the farm just as it stands, either to the town, or a corporation, for an even hundred thousand.”
“Does that give you a clue, Jack?” Alex asked.
Jack shook his head. At the next remark, however, he sharply gripped Alex’s arm.
“What fall has the stream there?”
“Forty feet, and the lake back of it is nearly a mile long, and a half mile wide.”
The rumble of the train again drowned the voices of the two men, but Jack had heard enough. “It’s old Uncle Joe Potter—his farm,” he said with indignation. “Now I understand. The old farmer apparently doesn’t know its value as an electric power plant site, and Burke is trying to get hold of it for a song.”