"Very well," said the lawyer. "I am glad of that, for I must confess I have carried things with a pretty high hand in this matter. I am almost afraid to tell you the whole truth now, for you may condemn me for the settlement I have made of your affairs after I tell you everything, but I have acted for what I thought was your best interests all the way through."
"We believe that," said Charley simply. "But for you we would have lost out completely. We would not ask for particulars if it were not that the mystery of the whole business still puzzles us."
"And yet it's a simple thing," said the lawyer. "You gave me nearly all the clews to it that day you called at my office in Palm Beach. You told me of all the efforts that had been made to hold up your work. You told me about the man Jones, and what the agent at Jupiter had told you about his getting cipher telegrams from the state capital and New York, and you also showed me a newspaper clipping, telling of the efforts of a big company to get free from the State of Florida a big grant of land between Indiantown and the jungle. Why, your mystery was nearly all solved in just what you told me that day."
"I don't see how," said Charley bewildered.
"The connection was plain enough," said Mr. Bruce, with a smile. "It was a big New York company that wanted to get the land for nothing. Jones was getting mysterious messages from New York and from the state capital. You were almost certain that Jones was the one back of all your troubles. Well, the deductions from all those facts were simple enough. Jones was evidently the agent for the New York company. Jones was not trying to kill any of you or to break up the machine. He was simply trying to hold up and delay the building of the road. Why did he want to hold up your work, you will ask. Well, the answer is contained in that newspaper clipping. The legislature will not meet until next month, when they will likely give the land grant to the company. The inference was plain, Jones' company wanted to have the road built, but not before they got the land from the state."
"But why?" persisted Charley, still puzzled.
"That's the question that puzzled me," smiled the lawyer. "It was what brought me out here the first time to look over the ground, and I found that you were carrying the answer around without knowing it. You were like Jones was about the surveyors' stakes. It was such a little thing that you never thought it of any importance."
"Go on," said Charley, still mystified.
"Those bits of rock you had in your game bag were phosphate at the highest grade," said the lawyer, with a smile. "The company was asking the state to give them millions of dollars' worth of phosphate for nothing, trusting to the state's ignorance of the value of the land."
"I see," said Charley excitedly, "they wanted to hold the machine back from digging through that land until they got the grant from the state. They reasoned that, when the shovel began to throw out that stuff, someone would be sure to recognize it, and the news would leak out, destroying their chances of getting millions of dollars for nothing."