“I’ve always lived here, my father too, and his before him; and back of that we came from mountains. We’re mountain blood; I don’t know if we could get used to anything else, live down yonder.”
“I’d civilize you,” she promised him.
“Perhaps—” he assented slowly.
Suddenly from beyond the ruin came the stir of a horse moving in harness, the sound stopped and the voices of men grew audible. Instinctively Gordon and Meta Beggs drew behind a standing fragment of wall. Gordon could see, through the displaced, rotting boards, a buggy and two men standing at the side of the road. One, he recognized, was Valentine Simmons; he easily made out the small, alert figure. The other, with his back to the mill, held outspread a sheet of paper. There was something familiar about the carriage of the head, a glimpse of beard, a cigar from which were expelled copious volumes of smoke. Gordon vainly racked his memory for a clue to the latter, elusive personality. He heard Simmons say:
“... by the South Fork entrance ... through the valley.”
The stranger partially turned, and Gordon instantly recalled where he had seen him before—it was the man he had driven from Stenton with the surprising foreknowledge of the County, who had been met by Pompey Hollidew. He replied to Simmons, “Exactly ... timber sidings at the principal depots.”
They were, evidently, discussing a projected road. Gordon subconsciously exclaimed, half aloud, “Railroad!” A swift illumination bathed in complete comprehension the whole affair—the connection, of Simmons, old Pompey’s options and the stranger. This railroad, the coming of which would increase enormously the timber values of Greenstream County, had been the covert reason for Simmons’ desire to purchase the options held by the Hollidew estate; it had been, during Pompey Hollidew’s life, the reason for the acquisition of such extended timber interests. Hollidew, Simmons and Company had joined in a conspiracy to purchase them throughout the county at a nominal sum and reap the benefits of the large enhancement. The death of the former had interrupted that satisfactory scheme; now Valentine Simmons had conceived the plan of gathering all the profit to himself. And, Gordon admitted, he had nearly succeeded ... nearly. A slow smile crossed Gordon Makimmon’s features as he realized what a pleasant conversation he would have with Simmons at the latter’s expense. He had never conceived the possibility of getting the astute storekeeper into such a satisfactory, retaliatory position. He would extract the last penny of profit and enjoyment from the other’s surprise.
The men beyond re-entered the buggy and drove toward the village.
“What is it?” Meta Beggs asked; “you look pleased.”
“Oh, I fell on a little scheme,” he replied evasively; “a trifle ... worth a hundred thousand or more to me.”