"Nobody but us fellows."
"You—you mustn't shut down. You've got to keep up the bluff until—until I get time to turn."
"You going to bump off that land to somebody else?"
"What do you think I'm going to do?" Nelson was on his feet now and pacing his office with jerky strides. "Take a loss like that?" He paused and glared at the bearer of bad tidings, then growled: "What are you grinning about? Oh, you needn't say it. You want yours, eh? Is that it?"
"Well—it's worth something to turn a trick like this."
"How much?"
"It's a big deal. It'll take something substantial—something substantial and paid in advance—to make our boys forget all the interesting sights they've seen. But I'd rather leave the amount to you, Henry. You know me; I wouldn't be a party to a crooked deal, not for anything, except to help you out—"
"How much?" the banker repeated, hoarsely.
But the field man merely smiled and shrugged, so, with a grunt of understanding, Henry seated himself and wrote out a check to bearer, the amount of which caused him to grind his teeth.
Now it was impossible to dispose of a large holding like that Arkansas tract at a moment's notice. In order to evade suspicion, it was necessary to go about it slowly, tactfully, hence the financier moved with as much circumspection as possible. His careful plans exploded, however, when he met Calvin Gray a day or so later.