“What land?”
“My land.”
“I don’t know anything about your property; the ground that the Company bought belonged to me.”
“To you! You never told me that you owned any in Missouri.”
“Do I have to tell you everything?” Harrington’s black eyes were contemptuously defiant.
“No, but you will have to tell me this,” said Atterbury.
Harrington shifted uneasily. “Well, then, take the truth if you want it. I meant to keep faith with you fairly enough, and I would have stuck to your interests if I could have afforded to—that’s the whole gist of the matter. And you’ve no case for complaint; we hadn’t signed any agreement.”
“You found another section like mine?”
Harrington nodded. “Nearly as good. I bought it for a song, and the Company sent out a surveyor and a couple of geologists of their own to look it up, and paid me fifty thousand for it—that is, indirectly, of course. I didn’t appear in the sale and by—I lost every cent in a deal yesterday.” He swore under his breath.
“You used the private information I gave you, I suppose?” said Atterbury in dangerously low tones.