Hutton gazed at him with sardonic amusement. “Oh,” he replied, “has somebody left you a fortune, or are they going to run a railroad through that valley?”
Nasmyth sat silent a moment or two, and it happened that his easy indifference served him tolerably well. Had he been a keener man, the anxiety to get about his work in the cañon, of which he was certainly sensible, might have led to his undoing; but he was not one who often erred through undue precipitancy. The waiting fight was, perhaps, the one for which he was particularly adapted. If anything, he was rather too much addicted to holding out his hand, and he realized that it behooves the man without capital to be particularly wary in his negotiations with the one in possession of money. His recent interview with Violet Hamilton also had a stirring effect on him, and now he sat quietly prepared to hold his own.
“No,” he declared, “there has been no particular change in my affairs. I have only been thinking things over, and it seems to me I ought to get the terms I mentioned.”
“Then you had better try. It won’t be from any of the accredited land agencies.”
Nasmyth noticed the faint ring in his companion’s voice. This, it seemed to him, was not bluff. The man, he believed, meant what he said.
“You seem quite sure of it,” he observed.
As a matter of fact, Hutton was, but he felt annoyed with himself.
“Well,” he said, “I naturally know what they would think of any proposition like the one you made me. Anyway, as I suggested, all you have to do is to try them.”
Again Nasmyth, conscious that his companion was 214 unobtrusively watching him, sat silent a moment or two. He knew that if he broke with Hutton he might have considerable difficulty in raising the money he required from any corporation interested in such matters in that city; but he had also another plan in his mind. He was far from sure that the scheme would prove successful, and it was at least certain that it would cost him a good deal of trouble to carry it out.
“Then I don’t think I need keep you any longer,” he told Hutton after a long pause. “I’ll leave the thing over for a day or two, and you can send across to my hotel if you wish to discuss it again.”