Page:Tongues of Flame (1924).pdf/193

 For yet another infinitesimal fraction of time a veil as of blank incomprehension was lowered, and then suddenly the face of John Boland was the face of a man who saw his way clear before him.

"Yes—oh, yes! It looks pretty nice, doesn't it?" The magnate's hands fondled each other, while his face was permitted to beam the natural enthusiasm of a trader who has just bought for three millions what promises to be worth thirty.

"It doesn't look so nice to me," Harrington confessed miserably. "It makes the whole transaction look rather . . . phony; rather . . . suspicious."

"Suspicious?" inquired Mr. Boland, his features tight and edged, showing heat for the first time. "Why, what in the devil are you talking about?" His manner was finely indignant. It almost swept Harrington off his feet mentally. What in the devil was he talking about, really?

"I should have thought the Indians ought to have had more money for their land, in that case," he tried to explain. "I should have thought so."

"We gave them enough—far more than anybody else would have given," affirmed Mr. Boland with decision. "We paid them for the timber and the land; why should we pay them for the oil? They didn't put it there. Why, if the report had got out that there was oil in this Shell Point tract, do you think you would have got the Indian Commissioner to consent to the sale? Not on your life. He would have been afraid to. The department would have tied us up and hedged us around with restrictions till development was impossible, just like the coal in Alaska."

"But the oil couldn't run away—it would be there for