“Careful!” Jerry snapped.
“Oh, all right. All I meant was that I was wondering if Sandy’s old, uh, if Mr. Steele was going to Minnesota to make ore testings. Is he?” Pepper rushed on eagerly, dropping his customary air of superiority.
“Nosy, aren’t you?” Jerry grinned, but Sandy stopped him before he could make further sport of the nettled Pepper.
“Why do you want to know?” Sandy asked evenly.
Pepper shrugged. “Just curious, that’s all.” He finished his Coke and got off his stool with a jaunty air, and just then, Sandy Steele had a sudden inspiration.
“I know why you want to know!” he said triumphantly. “That’s why you’re going to South America with your father, isn’t it? To inspect the South American ore fields!”
Pepper whirled in anger. “Think you’re smart, don’t you?” he snarled, and Sandy smiled and said, “I never said it, Pepper.”
“Oh, yes, you do!” Pepper went on, furious by now. “But let me tell you, Mr. Goody-Goody, maybe we are going to South America to look for ore! And that’s nobody’s business but ours. And furthermore, my old man says that anybody who bothers with the Mesabi mines any more must be crazy! You hear that, Steele? So your old—” he stopped short at a warning glance from Sandy, before racing on—“so your father’s going to Minnesota on a wild-goose chase. He isn’t going to find anything but a lot of dirt! And while you two dopes are sweating away in a worked-out iron mine, I’ll be sailing up the Orinoco River on my father’s yacht.” He smirked, threw a dime on the counter, made a little mocking bow at the door, and went out.
For a moment, there was silence in the drugstore. Then Jerry James picked up Pepper’s glass, rinsed it and dried it off and returned it to the shelf. With a wink, he turned to his friend and said, “That Pepper’s sure a windbag, isn’t he?” Sandy shook his head. His face was sober.
“I wish it was just talk, Jerry,” he said. “But I’m afraid it’s true. Dad said tonight there was a possibility of just that very thing happening. And he said it would be a terrible thing for American industry if we had to start buying our iron ore in South America.”