"Come back, Craig!" Hester called softly.
He started, threw the papers into a drawer, and looked at his watch.
"I thought I'd give them half an hour, and I've been all evening," he said, feeling for his pipe. "Now we'll have a talk. I told Fred to order all the dressed lumber he wanted, and I'd meet the bill. The house he thought of putting up wasn't half big enough; in a year or two he'd have had to build again. Then we want the stuff to season, and there's no time to lose if it's to be ready for you when the harvest's in."
Hester blushed prettily.
"You have given us a good deal already, Craig. We would have been satisfied with the smaller homestead."
"Shucks!" returned Harding. "I don't give what I can't afford. You and Fred have helped to put me where I am, and I'd have felt mean if I hadn't given you a good start off when I'm going to spend money recklessly on another plan. Now that all I need for the summer's paid for, I've been doing some figuring."
"Ah! You think of buying some of the Allenwood land?"
"Yes," he said gravely. "It will be a strain, but now's the time, when the falling markets will scare off buyers. I hate to see things go to pieces, and they want a man to show them how the settlement should be run. They have to choose between me and the mortgage broker. It will cost me a tough fight to beat him, but I think I see my way."
"But what about Colonel Mowbray?"
"He's the trouble. I surely don't know what to do with him; but I guess he'll have to be satisfied with moral authority. I might leave him that."