“To be sure,” replied Daly with the accent of sarcasm.
“You had no business entering into any such contract. It gave him no show.”
“I suppose that was mainly his lookout, wasn't it? And as I already told you, we had to protect ourselves.”
“You should have demanded security for the completion of the work. Under your present agreement, if Radway got in the timber, you were to pay him a fair price. If he didn't, you appropriated everything he had already done. In other words, you made him a bet.”
“I don't care what you call it,” answered Daly, who had recovered his good-humor in contemplation of the security of his position. “The fact stands all right.”
“It does,” replied Thorpe unexpectedly, “and I'm glad of it. Now let's examine a few figures. You owned five million feet of timber, which at the price of stumpage” (standing trees) “was worth ten thousand dollars.”
“Well.”
“You come out at the end of the season with three million and a half of saw logs, which with the four dollars' worth of logging added, are worth twenty-one thousand dollars.”
“Hold on!” cried Daly, “we paid Radway four dollars; we could have done it ourselves for less.”
“You could not have done it for one cent less than four-twenty in that country,” replied Thorpe, “as any expert will testify.”