“I guess I’m in your hands,” observed Hames.
“Then,” Acton said, “you can wait in my clerk’s office until I’m ready to go over with you to Waynefleet’s hotel.”
Hames went out, and Acton turned to Nasmyth. “He was hired with a few others to jump the claim he mentioned, and there was trouble over it. As usual, just what happened never quite came out, but that man left his partner to face the boys, who scarcely managed 305 to escape with their lives that night. The man who holds Waynefleet’s mortgage should be here at any moment.”
The man arrived in a few minutes. After he had sat down and had taken the cigar Acton offered him, he was ready to talk business.
“You have a mortgage on Rancher Waynefleet’s holding in the Bush,” said Acton. “I understand you’ve had some trouble in getting what he owes you.”
The man nodded. “That’s certainly the case,” he said. “I bought up quite a lot of land before I laid down the mill, but after I did that I let most of it go. In fact, I’m quite willing to let up on Waynefleet’s holding, too. I can’t get a dollar out of him.”
“Have you offered to sell the mortgage to anybody?”
“I saw Martial and the Charters people not long ago. They’d give about eighty cents on the dollar. Hutton said he’d make me a bid, but he didn’t.”
“Well,” said Acton, “my friend here wants that ranch for a particular purpose. He’d bid you ninety.”
“I can’t do it. If the new roads that have been suggested are made, the ranch ought to bring me a little more. Still, I don’t mind letting you in at what I gave for it.”