"Because I never did!"
Bill smiled at him and said, in his slow, gentle monotone:
"You bought all that land of him and never saw him about it?" He looked up at the judge and laughed. "And he called me a liar!"
Hammond got up, but Bill detained him. "Don't go away," he admonished, with a jaunty toss of his head. "We got some more for you, 'ain't we?" and he looked at Marvin, who smiled in approval. "I've got a good one for him!" Bill went on.
"You know the railroad company leased the waterfall on mother's place and put a power-plant there?"
"I believe they have," said Hammond, impatiently.
"And you know that the railroad pays you more for that lease in a month than you agreed to give mother in a year?"
It was a surprise to Hammond, and evidently to Marvin, too, that Bill should know anything of the details of either the lease of the railroad company or of what payment had been promised to Mrs. Jones. A great light flashed on Marvin—obviously Bill Jones had not been altogether wasting his time during his prolonged disappearance! Hammond, beginning to suspect that Bill knew more than he had been given credit for, decided that ignorance was the best stand to take.
"How should I know the petty details of the railroad's lease?" he said.
"How should you know?" echoed Bill, his voice raised, unwontedly clear and ringing. "Didn't the railroad lease the waterfall from a bum concern called the Golden Gate Land Company? Didn't you, actin' for the Golden Gate Company, put through the deal? Don't you know that the Golden Gate Land Company is controlled by yourself and Raymond Thomas—ain't you and Thomas the whole works o' that—"