If the music teacher had been keeping a vow of silence she broke it now with a little laugh.
“I am interested,” she assured him; adding: “I hope you feel better, now that you have made me say it in so many words.”
Tregarvon let the small gibe go without retort.
“The offer of a hundred thousand for the Ocoee properties has been renewed in my behalf, Thaxter tells me; but if I wish to avail myself of it, I must accept immediately.”
“What is the keen rush?” Carfax inquired.
“It is explained reasonably enough. The C. C. & I. people are preparing to open other veins on their Whitlow lands to the north of the present mine. These plans are being held up, pending my decision. If I sell out to them, they will probably abandon these plans for the present; opening, instead, the south vein—the one Thaxter told us about—and using our tramway and coke-ovens.”
Carfax seemed to have grown suddenly reflective. “It rather puts you between two fires, doesn’t it?” he commented. “You don’t wish to lose your chance to sell, and you don’t wish to sell before you have seen what that unfinished hole over yonder may be going to show you. And if you take time to drag this power-plant over by hand, the golden opportunity will get by. The question which suggests itself to me is a very foolish one, no doubt. I’m asking myself how much the C. C. & I. people paid your farmers to induce them to lie down on you.”
Tregarvon’s laugh was brittle. “You needn’t go that far. I’ll be frank enough to admit that I gave Daggett and his men plenty of provocation for the strike.”
“In other words, you’ve been handing them some of the mule talk. Shocking! But that is spilt milk and it can’t be gathered up now. What is Thaxter’s time limit?”
“He says in his note that he will expect to hear from me by Saturday, at the latest. That is to-morrow.”