The man was Henshaw Hook, the best-known man in that section, the town auctioneer. He had the gift of gab, the science of talking all men into good humor, and was as alert in all his doings as a cricket on a hot spider.
I took him by the arm and rushed him up to my room. Mr. Hook had brought no ax to the levee; he told me, by way of explanation, that he had come around out of curiosity. So had a lot of others, I knew well enough.
Dodovah Vose followed us, for I had summoned him by a jerk of my head.
“Now, Mr. Hook, here’s the story short and snappy,” I told him. “I represent a big syndicate which is buying all kinds of property. I have bought Judge Kingsley’s wood-lot for the sake of what is on it—and it must be cleaned off in a hurry. Of course, I can’t hang around town to attend to that part of the business. I need an able man who can attend to it.” I pulled out my papers and inspected my figures. “Mostly we are after hardwood—cord-wood! Do you suppose you can pull a hundred or so good workers out of that crowd downstairs?”
“Yep!” snapped Hook. “Mebbe more.”
He was just as brisk as I was.
The newspaper had given me quotations in its market column, and I had chopped cord-wood in my own young life. Furthermore, in my everlasting scurryings after squirrels and birds I had made many explorations on Judge Kingsley’s domains. I was fully prepared to talk business, therefore.
“Mr. Hook, green cord-wood is selling for five dollars a cord. It’s a poor man with an ax who can’t chop, trim, and pile his cord a day—four-foot length. If you can put two hundred men on that job and will abide by the rules of my syndicate, you can turn a profit of around fifty dollars a day for your own pocket—for I offer you five per cent, on five dollars a cord.”
Mr. Hook promptly showed much interest. “You said rules?”
“I said rules!”