"I want to make you a proposition. I need money, and I don't mind saying that I need it bad! I've got a chance for something good, something big, in a mining speculation, and I'm short of cash. If I could raise the money within thirty days…"
Thornton laughed.
"Nothing doing, Pollard," he cut in. "When your money's due you can come talk to me. Not before."
"I said I had a proposition, didn't I?" went on Pollard evenly. "I see where I can make by it, and I'm willing for you to profit at the same time."
"Spit it out. Where do I get off?"
"You owe me five thousand yet."
"Five thousand with interest, six per cent…."
"Forget the interest; I don't want it. And I'll carve five hundred dollars off the five thousand too, if you'll raise it within thirty days. That is my proposition. What do you say to it?"
For a little Buck Thornton was silent, thinking swiftly. For the life of him he could not but look for some trickery in any proposition which might come from "Rattlesnake" Pollard. And when Pollard coolly offered to give away eight hundred dollars, five hundred of it principal, three hundred interest, Thornton had an uneasy sense that there was something crooked in the deal. But at the same time he knew that a year ago Pollard had been short of funds and for this reason had been driven to sell the Poison Hole. Hence it might be that now Pollard was telling the truth when he said that he needed money.
"You mean," he said presently, speaking slowly, trying to see Pollard's face in the shadows, "that if I come across with four thousand five hundred dollars in thirty days you will give me the deed to the Poison Hole?"