"Well, yes; but, after all, it isn't any big thing. If you were up on lumber rates, Mr. Blount—as I don't suppose you are—you'd know that the special tariff we get is all that enables us to live and do business."
Blount had opened his penknife and was absently sharpening a pencil.
"This special rate you refer to, Mr. Hathaway," he said, speaking slowly and quite distinctly—"am I right in inferring that it is not confined strictly to points within the State boundaries?"
At this the lumberman repeated a phrase which he had used in the anxious conference in the Weatherford herbarium.
"If I thought you didn't know, I'd go a long time without telling you, Mr. Blount. But of course you do know. If you wasn't on the inside of all the insides you wouldn't be sitting here pulling the strings for McVickar. The rate is a blanket; it covers all shipments."
Blount nodded and his apparent coolness was no just measure of the inward fires the crooked lumber-king was kindling.
"You interest me greatly, Mr. Hathaway. I am a little new to these things—as you intimated a few moments ago. How is this matter handled—by rebates, I suppose?"
"N-not exactly," was the hesitating denial. "That would be too risky for both of us. But the Transcontinental Company is a heavy buyer—lumber and cross-ties and bridge timber, you know—and the biggest part of the difference between our special and the regular rate is taken up in our bills for material furnished to the railroad."
"Let me be quite clear upon that point," said Blount; and if Hathaway had had eyes to see, he would have observed that the young lawyer's attitude was becoming more judicial with every fresh questioning. "Let me be quite sure that I understand. You mean that you are allowed to charge the railroad company more than the market price on the material it buys?"