Instantly, and with no wasted regrets over lost opportunities, Simmons changed his tactics to meet existing conditions. “Your wife’s estate controls about three thousand acres of timber,” he pronounced. “What will you take for them?”
“How much do you control?” Gordon asked.
“About twenty-five hundred at present.”
Gordon paused, then, “Lettice will take thirty dollars an acre.”
“Why!” the other protested, “Pompey bought them for little or nothing. You’re after over two hundred per cent. increase.”
“What do you figure to get out of yours?”
“That doesn’t concern us now. I’ve had to put this through—a tremendous thing for Greenstream, a lasting benefit—entirely by myself. I will have to guarantee a wicked profit outside; I stand alone to lose a big sum. I’ll give you ten dollars for the options.”
Gordon rose. “I’ll see the railroad people myself,” he observed; “and find out what I can do there.”
“Hold on,” Simmons waved him back to his chair. “If there’s too much talk the thing will get out. You know these thick skulls around here—at the whisper of transportation you couldn’t cut a sapling with a gold axe. It took managing to interest the Tennessee and Northern; they are going through to Buffalo; a Greenstream branch is only a side issue to them.” He paused, thinking. “There’s no good,” he resumed, “in you and me getting into each other. The best thing we can do is to control all the good stuff, agree on a price, and divide the take.”
Gordon carefully considered this new proposal. It seemed to him palpably fair. “All the papers would have to be made together,” he added; “what’s for one’s for the other.”