"Exactly. Didn't you get your father's letter telling of my coming?"
"I've been from headquarters three days," Bob explained.
"I see. Well, he sent you this message: 'Tell Bob to go ahead. I can take care of myself.'"
"Bully for dad!" cried Bob, greatly heartened.
"He told me he did not want to advise you, but that in the old days when a fight was on, the spectators were supposed to do their own dodging."
"I'd about come to that conclusion," said Bob, "but it surely does me good to feel that father's behind me in it."
"My trip in '79—or whenever it was—was exactly on this same muss-up." Mr. Taylor went on: "Your father owned this timber land then, and wanted to borrow money on it. At the time a rascally partner was trying to ruin him; and, in order to prevent his getting this money, which would save him, this partner instigated investigations and succeeded temporarily in clouding the title. Naturally the banks declined to lend money on doubtful titles; which was all this partner wanted.[[7]] Perhaps you know all this?"
Bob shook his head. "I was a little too young to know anything of business."
"Your father sent me out to straighten things. The whole matter was involved in endless red tape, obscured in every ingenious way possible. Although there proved to be nothing to the affair, to prove that fact took time, and time was what your father's partner was after. As a matter of fact, he failed; but that was not the result of miscalculation. Now I strongly suspect that your friend Baker, or his lawyers, have dug up a lot of this old evidence on the records and are going to use it to annoy us. There is nothing more in it how than there was at the beginning, but it's colourable enough to start a noisy suit on, and that's all these fellows are after."
"But if it was decided once, how can they bring it up again?" Bob objected.