“Absolutely no.”
Beasley rose to his feet. He showed no disappointment or chagrin, but the bold pleasantness left his face, and, slight as that change was, it stripped him of the only redeeming quality he showed.
“Thet means I'll force you to pay me the eighty thousand or put you off,” he said.
“Mr. Beasley, even if I owed you that, how could I raise so enormous a sum? I don't owe it. And I certainly won't be put off my property. You can't put me off.”
“An' why can't I?” he demanded, with lowering, dark gaze.
“Because your claim is dishonest. And I can prove it,” declared Helen, forcibly.
“Who 're you goin' to prove it to—thet I'm dishonest?”
“To my men—to your men—to the people of Pine—to everybody. There's not a person who won't believe me.”
He seemed curious, discomfited, surlily annoyed, and yet fascinated by her statement or else by the quality and appearance of her as she spiritedly defended her cause.
“An' how 're you goin' to prove all thet?” he growled.