Thorpe watched him with sympathetic eyes, but with lips that obstinately refused to say one word. A woman would have felt rebuffed. The boy's admiration, however, rested on the foundation of the more manly qualities he had already seen in his friend. Perhaps this very aloofness, this very silent, steady-eyed power appealed to him.
“I left college at nineteen because my father died,” said he. “I am now just twenty-one. A large estate descended to me, and I have had to care for its investments all alone. I have one sister, that is all.”
“So have I,” cried Thorpe, and stopped.
“The estates have not suffered,” went on the boy simply. “I have done well with them. But,” he cried fiercely, “I HATE it! It is petty and mean and worrying and nagging! That's why I was so glad to get out in the woods.”
He paused.
“Have some tobacco,” said Thorpe.
Wallace accepted with a nod.
“Now, Harry, I have a proposal to make to you. It is this; you need thirty thousand dollars to buy your land. Let me supply it, and come in as half partner.”
An expression of doubt crossed the landlooker's face.
“Oh PLEASE!” cried the boy, “I do want to get in something real! It will be the making of me!”