“I’ve been willing to sell it for two years,” Hudson answered with a grin. “Haven’t done half my legal breaking, and don’t mean to, so it’s not mine to sell, and would have to remain registered to me until the improvements were completed. Then, you see, I could come back, and jump you.”
“I don’t think you could,” said Harry. “You might hurt yourself trying it. How much do you call a fair thing for the holding as it stands, bearing in mind our risk in buying what is only the good-will with the owner absent?”
They haggled over the terms for a while, and then Harry turned to me.
“We can do it at a stretch, Ralph, by paying him so much after the crop’s sold for the next two years. Of course, it’s a big handful, but there’s lots of sloo hay that would feed winter stock, and I want the house badly. Indeed, if I don’t get it I’m going to build one. Don’t you think we could take the risk?”
I thought hard for a few minutes. We were speculating boldly, and already had undertaken rather more than we could manage; but the offer was tempting, and, noting Harry’s eagerness, I agreed.
“Yes; we will chance it,” I said, “on his own terms of 373 yearly payments, although heaven only knows how we’re going to finance it if the crop dies off. Hudson, I’ll give you a small check to-morrow if you are satisfied, but it’s fair to tell you that if you stayed and completed the improvements you would get more for it when you held the patent.”
“That’s all right,” said Hudson. “I guess I’ll take the check. You may have the building and the hundred and sixty blanked acres, scarcely ten of them broken. It’s easier peddling pictures than farming, any day, and no one else would buy it in the circumstances. It’s not even mine without the patent, and if I die in the meantime you’ll get nothing.”
“We’ll get the crop and the cattle feed; you don’t suppose we’ve bought it to look at; and if you died the pay would stop,” said Harry dryly, and turned toward me when Hudson, moving away contented, sat down to enjoy a peaceful smoke.
“That settles it, Ralph,” he said. “The deal ought to show a good result, and I wanted the house. Now that I have got it, it’s time for me to ask you a question which would have to be answered presently in any case. I was waiting to see how things would go, out of fairness to her, but as we have bound ourselves hard and fast to Fairmead for several years at least, I’m going to ask you a great thing. Will you give me Aline?”
“Will she have you?” I said smiling.