“What under the sun's Peter Mosely got to do with my business?” burst from Bishop's impatient lips.
“He's got a sorter roundabout connection with it, I reckon,” smiled Abner, grimly. “I happen to know that Abe Tompkins sold 'im two thousand acres o' timber-land on Huckleberry Ridge jest atter yore Atlanta man spent the day lookin' round in these parts.”
Bishop was no fool, and he grasped Abner's meaning even before it was quite clear to the others.
“Looky heer,” he said, sharply, “what do you take me fur?”
“I'ain't tuck you fer nothin',” said Abner, with a grin. “Leastwise, I'ain't tuck you fer five thousand dollars' wuth o' cotton-mill stock. To make a long story short, the Atlanta jack-leg lawyer is akin to the Tompkins family some way. I don't know exactly what kin, but Joe Tompkins's wife stayed at Perkins's house when she was down thar havin' er spine straightened. I'd bet a new hat to a ginger-cake that Perkins never owned a spoonful o' land up heer, an' that he's jest he'pin' the Tompkins folks on the sly to unload some o' the'r land, so they kin move West, whar they've always wanted to go. Peter Mosely is a man on the watch-out fer rail soft snaps, an' when Perkins whispered the big secret in his yeer, like he did to you, he started out on a still hunt fer timbered land on the line of the proposed trunk line due west vy-ah Lickskillet to Darley, with stop-over privileges at Buzzard Roost, an' fifteen minutes fer hash at Dog Trot Springs. Then, somehow or other, by hook or crook—mostly crook—Abe Tompkins wasn't dodgin' anybody about that time; Peter Mosely could 'a' run agin 'im with his eyes shut on a dark night. I was at Neil Fulmore's store when the two met, an' ef a trade was ever made quicker betwixt two folks it was done by telegraph an' the paper was signed by lightnin'. Abe said he had the land an' wouldn't part with it at any price ef he hadn't been bad in need o' money, fer he believed it was chuck-full o' iron ore, soapstone, black marble, an' water-power, to say nothin' o' timber, but he'd been troubled so much about cash, he said, that he'd made up his mind to let 'er slide an' the devil take the contents. I never seed two parties to a deal better satisfied. They both left the store with a strut. Mosely's strut was the biggest, fer he wasn't afeerd o' nothin'. Tompkins looked like he was afeerd Mosely ud call 'im back an' want to rue.”
“You mean to say—” But old Bishop seemed unable to put his growing fear into words.
“Oh, I don't know nothin' fer certain,” said Abner Daniel, sympathetically; “but ef I was you I'd go down to Atlanta an' see Perkins. You kin tell by the way he acts whether thar's anything in his railroad story or not; but, by gum, you ort to know whar you stand. You've loaded yorese'f from hind to fore quarters, an' ef you don't plant yore feet on some'n you 'll go down.”
Bishop clutched this proposition as a drowning man would a straw. “Well, I will go see 'im,” he said. “I 'll go jest to satisfy you. As fer as I'm concerned, I know he wasn't tellin' me no lie; but I reckon you all never 'll rest till you are satisfied.”
He descended the steps and crossed the yard to the barn. They saw him lean over the rail fence for a moment as if in troubled thought, and then he seemed to shake himself, as if to rid himself of an unpleasant mental burden, and passed through the little sagging gate into the stable to feed his horses. It was now noon. The sun was shining broadly on the fields, and ploughmen were riding their horses home in their clanking harnesses.
“Poor father,” said Alan to his uncle, as his mother retired slowly into the house. “He seems troubled, and it may mean our ruin—absolute ruin.”