Page:Hugh Pendexter--The young timber-cruisers.djvu/402

 gold mine in this affair and propose to make the company pay well.”

“If you’d studied the situation a thousand years you couldn’t have put it more neatly,” cried Nace. “The Great Northern is going to pay well. More’n that; it’s going to pay big."

“Then you have no word to send to our president?”

Nace hesitated, his eyes shining with a cunning light as he greed in canvassed his prospects. “Why, of course, I’m hot under the collar,” he explained, rolling his eyes virtuously. “It’s natural I should get mighty mad over the way the Great Northern has abused me. Still, I hope I am not a hard man. I want to be fair, even when I’ve been treated unfairly. I should say that if the company paid me fifty thousand dollars, for the slanders and for my actual money damages I would then be willing to give it an option on the timber. Yes, I’d do that.”

“How much would you want for the timber?” quietly asked Hatton.

Nace pursed up his lips and frowned, as if meditating heavily. “Why, not to be too hard I should say about one hundred and fifty thousand dollars.”