"Fifty."
"Well, fifty, then!" snapped Metzger, with a great show of anger. "But look here, if we go up ten dollars on our part, you come down ten dollars on your part! We will pay fifty dollars a thousand for all logs between eight and ten million—and ten dollars a thousand for all logs delivered short of eight million—and you bind yourself to sell us your entire drive on those terms."
"That's a deal," answered the boy. "And our crew to work with yours at the sorting gap. When will you have the papers?"
"Come back at two," growled the man, shortly.
When Connie had gone, Metzger touched one of a row of buttons upon his desk, and von Kuhlmann entered, and standing at military attention, waited for his superior to speak.
For a full minute Metzger kept him standing without deigning to notice him. Then, scribbling for a moment, he extended a paper toward his subordinate. "Have a contract drawn in conformity with these figures," he commanded.
Von Kuhlmann glanced at the paper. "He agreed? As it iss so said here in America—he bite?"
Metzger's thin lip writhed in a saturnine grin: "Yes, he bit. I strung him along, and he has an idea that he is a wonderful business man—to hold out against me for his price. Ha, little did he know that the top price interested me not at all! It was the lesser figure that I was after—and you see what it is, von Kuhlmann—ten dollars a thousand!"
The other made a rapid mental calculation: "On the deal, at five million feet, we make, at the least, more than three hundred thousand!"
Metzger nodded: "Yes! That is business!" he glared into von Kuhlmann's face, "This deal is based on your report. If you have failed us——!"