“Now,” she said, “tell me.”
“Well,” he began, when he saw that there was nothing to be gained by delay, “the very night that the Bishop of Alden told me that they had found iron in the hills here and that they were going to try to push us all out of our homes, I started out to warn the people. I found I wasn’t the only man that the railroad had tried to buy. They had Rafe Gadbeau, you know he’s a kind of a political boss of the French around French Village; and a man named Sayres over on Forked Lake.
“Gadbeau had no farm of his own to sell, but he’d been spending money around free, and I knew the railroad must have given it to him outright. I told him what I had found out, about the iron and what the land would be worth if the farmers held on to it. But I might as well have held my breath. He didn’t care anything about the interests of the people that had land. He was getting paid well for every option that he could get. And he was going to get all he could. I will have trouble with that man yet.
“The other man, Sayres, is a big land-owner, 71 and a good man. They had fooled him, just as that man Rogers I told you about fooled me. He had started out in good faith to help the railroad get the properties over on that side of the mountains, thinking it was the best thing for the people to do to sell out at once. When I told him about their finding iron, he saw that they had made a catspaw of him; and he was the maddest man you ever saw.
“He is a big man over that way, and his word was worth ten of mine. He went right out with me to warn every man who had a piece of land not to sign anything.
“Three weeks ago Rogers, who is handling the whole business for the railroad, came up here and had me arrested on charges of extortion and conspiring to intimidate the land-owners. They took me down to Lowville, but Judge Clemmons couldn’t find anything in the charges. So I was let go. But they are not through. They will find some way to get me away from here yet.”
“How does it stand now?” said Ruth thoughtfully. “Have they actually started to build the railroad?”
“Oh, yes. You know they have the right of way to run the road through. But they wouldn’t build it, at least not for years yet, only that they want to get this iron property opened up. Why, the road is to run from Welden to French Village and there is not a single town on the whole line! 72 The road wouldn’t have business enough to keep the rust off. They’re building the road just the same, so that shows that they intend to get our property some way, no matter what we do. And I suppose they will, somehow,” he added sullenly. “They always do, I guess.”
“But the people,” said Ruth, “can’t you get them all to join and agree to sell at a fair price? Wouldn’t that be all right?”
“They don’t want to buy. They won’t buy at any fair price. They only want to get options enough to show the Legislature and the Governor, and then they will be granted eminent domain and they can have the land condemned and can buy it at the price of wild land.”