"Certainly, Mr. Daney. I have none."
"It would be a favor to the Tyee Lumber Company if you had, and that they contemplated removal to some other house. The Laird had planned originally to use the Sawdust Pile for a drying-yard"—he smiled faintly—"but abandoned the idea rather than interfere with your father's comfort. Of course, The Laird hasn't any more title to the Sawdust Pile than you have—not as much, in fact, for I do believe you could make a squatter's right stick in any court. Just at present, however, we have greater need of the Sawdust Pile than ever. We're getting out quite a lot of airplane spruce for the British government, and since there's no doubt we'll be into the war ourselves one of these days, we'll have to furnish additional spruce for our own government. Spruce has to be air-dried, you know, to obtain the best results, and—well, we really need the Sawdust Pile. What will you take to abandon, it and leave us in undisputed possession?"
"Nothing, Mr. Daney."
"Nothing?"
"Precisely—nothing. We have always occupied it on The Laird's sufferance, so I do not think, Mr. Daney," she explained, with a faint smile, "that I shall turn pirate and ingrate now. If you will be good enough to bring me over twenty-five hundred dollars in cash to-day, I will give you a clearance for the loss of the Brutus and abandon the Sawdust Pile to you within the next three or four days."
His plan had worked so successfully that Daney was, for the moment, rendered incapable of speech.
"Will you be leaving Port Agnew?" he sputtered presently. "Or can I arrange to let you have a small house at a modest rental—"
She dissipated this verbal camouflage with a disdainful motion of her upflung hand.
"Thank you. I shall leave Port Agnew—forever. The loss of the Brutus makes my escape possible," she added ironically.
"May I suggest that you give no intimation of your intention to surrender this property?" he suggested eagerly. "If word of your plan to abandon got abroad, it might create an opportunity for some person to jump the Sawdust Pile and defy us to dispossess him."