Page:Harold Titus--Timber.djvu/180

172 but it's bound to come. He commenced stirrin' up a dust about timber taxes a few years ago. That was all right; he couldn't get anywhere and I wouldn't have kicked on that, anyhow. But now he's spreadin' out and 's asking too damn many questions about farms that are started and abandoned on these light lands. He wants to start some nutty land reform movement. We'll mix, yet. He's treading mighty close to my bunions. And he's lined up with the gal, all right. He's her port when it blows uncomfortable hard."

In the far distance the down train whistled and Rowe stood up, shaking his coat.

"About this other, though? This matter of taxes? You think you're safe there? You've got the supervisors thinking your way?"

Harris brushed ashes from his breast and laughed.

"Thinkin'? Hell, Rowe, these yaps haven't got anything to think with. But as for havin' them—" He thrust out one hand and held it close to the other's face, fist clenched. "Like that!" he said beneath his breath.

In other places in Pancake that night Helen Foraker was in the minds of men. In the bank of Pancake, for one, where Ezam Grainger sat at his desk, securities spread before him, going through the papers, making neat notes. His tight little face was harried and the stiff, straight collar slightly wilted from the moisture of his wrinkled neck, and now and then he muttered to himself.

From the stack of mortgages he took the next document. It was a paper covering title to three sections of Foraker's Folly: it was for $20,000. It was due, he saw, within three weeks. And when he put it down he checked it