"It strikes me we're only working around the point and shifting ground," he said. "What makes you believe I don't mean to act straight?"
"What happened in Langton's and Winthrop's case?"
Nevis sat silent a moment or two. There was a vein of vindictiveness in him, but he was avaricious first of all, and he could generally keep his resentment in the background when it was a question of money.
"Are you a friend of either of them?" he asked.
"Not exactly; but I took a certain interest in Winthrop—I liked the man. In fact, I helped him out of a tight place once or twice, and might have done it again, only that I realized the one result would be to put a few more dollars into your pocket. That"—and Hunter smiled—"didn't seem worth while."
"It was a straight deal; I lent him the money at the usual interest. He couldn't have got it cheaper from anybody else."
Hunter looked at him in a curious manner and Nevis wondered somewhat uneasily how much this farmer knew. He had been correct as far as he had gone, but he had, as he recognized, left one opening for attack when he had foreclosed on Winthrop's stock and homestead. There are exemption laws in parts of Canada which to some extent protect the small farmer's possessions from seizure for debt unless he has actually mortgaged them. Winthrop had done this, but the mortgage was not a heavy one, and Nevis had afterward lent him further money, with the deliberate intention of breaking him. When the value of the possessions pledged greatly exceeds what has been advanced on them, which is generally the case, it is now and then profitable to foreclose, even though any excess above the loan realized at the sale must ostensibly be handed to the borrower. There, are, however, means of preventing him from getting very much of it, and though the process is sometimes risky this did not count for much with Nevis.
"Well," said Hunter quietly, "I'm not sure that what you tell me has any bearing on the matter."
This might mean anything or nothing, and Nevis, determining to force an issue, leaned forward confidentially.
"Let's face the point," he replied. "I want a share in this creamery—I can make it pay. There's only you who really counts against me. I may as well own it. Now, can't we come to terms somehow? I merely want you to abandon your opposition, and you would have no difficulty in preventing my doing anything that appeared against the stockholders' interests."