“Git out!” shouted Queeder, becoming wildly excited and waving his hands and jumping backward. “Yuh swindled me, that’s whutcha done! Yut thort yuh’d git this place fer nothin’. Well, yuh won’t—yuh kain’t. I won’t sign nuthin’. I won’t sign nuthin’.” His eyes were red and wild from too much brooding.
Now it was that Crawford, who had been hoping to get it all for two thousand, decided to stick to his private agreement to pay eight, only instead of waiting to adjust it with Queeder in private he decided now to use it openly in an attempt to suborn the family to his point of view by showing them how much he really was to have and how unjust Queeder had planned to be to himself and them. In all certainty the family understood it as only two. If he would now let them know how matters stood, perhaps that would make a difference in his favor.
“You call eight thousand for this place swindling, and after you’ve taken eight hundred dollars of my money and kept it for sixty days?”
“Whut’s that?” asked Dode, edging nearer, then turning and glaring at his father and eyeing his mother amazedly. This surpassed in amount and importance anything he had imagined had been secured by them, and of course he assumed that both were lying. “Eight thousan’! I thort yuh said it wuz two!” He looked at his mother for confirmation.
The latter was a picture of genuine surprise. “That’s the fust I hearn uv any eight thousan’,” she replied dumbly, her own veracity in regard to the transaction being in question.
The picture that Queeder made under the circumstances was remarkable. Quite upset by this half-unexpected and yet feared revelation, he was now quite beside himself with rage, fear, the insolvability of the amazing tangle into which he had worked himself. The idea that after he had made an agreement with this man, which was really unfair to himself, he should turn on him in this way was all but mentally upsetting. Besides, the fact that his wife and son now knew how greedy and selfish he had been weakened him to the point of terror.
“Well, that’s what I offered him, just the same,” went on Crawford aggressively and noting the extreme effect, “and that’s what he agreed to take, and that’s what I’m here to pay. I paid him $800 in cash to bind the bargain, and he has the money now somewhere. His saying now that I tried to swindle him is too funny! He asked me not to say anything about it because the land was all his and he wanted to adjust things with you three in his own way.”
“Git outen hyur!” shouted Queeder savagely, going all but mad, “before I kill yuh! I hain’t signed nuthin’! We never said nuthin’ about no $8,000. It wuz $2,000—that’s what it wuz! Ye’re trin’ tuh swindle me, the hull varmint passel o’ yuh! I won’t sign nuthin’!” and he stooped and attempted to seize a stool that stood near the wall.
At this all retreated except Dode, who, having mastered his father in more than one preceding contest, now descended on him and with one push of his arm knocked him down, so weak was he, while the lawyer and prospector, seeing him prone, attempted to interfere in his behalf. What Dode was really thinking was that now was his chance. His father had lied to him. He was naturally afraid of him. Why not force him by sheer brute strength to accept this agreement and take the money? Once it was paid here before him, if he could make his father sign, he could take his share without let or hindrance. Of what dreams might not this be the fulfilment? “He agreed on’t, an’ now he’s gotta do it,” he thought; “that’s all.”
“No fighting, now,” called Giles. “We don’t want any fighting—just to settle this thing pleasantly, that’s all.”