"Then I can tell you," was the equally steady rejoinder. "Some time ago you lent David Massingale, through the bank, a pretty large sum of money for development expenses on the 'Little Susan,' taking a mortgage on everything in sight to cover the loan."
"I did."
"Massingale's obligation was in short-time, bankable paper, which he expected to take up when the railroad should come in and give him a market for the ore which he has already taken out of the mine."
"Yes."
"But when the railroad was an assured fact he learned that the Red Butte smelters wouldn't take his ore, giving some technical reason which he knew to be a mere excuse."
Mr. Cortwright nodded. "So far you might be reading it out of a book."
"In consequence of these successive happenings, David Massingale finds himself in a fair way to become a broken man by the simplest of commercial processes. The bank holds his notes, which will presently have to be paid. If he can't pay, the bank comes back on you as his indorser, and you fall back on your mortgage and take the mine. Isn't that about the size of it?"
"It is exactly the size of it."
Brouillard laughed quietly. "And yet you said a moment ago that you didn't know why young Massingale should threaten your son."
"And I don't know yet," blustered the magnate. "Is it my fault that Massingale can't pay his debts?"