"Why!" the other protested, "Pompey bought them for little or nothing.
You're after over two hundred per cent. increase."
"What do you figure to get out of yours?"
"That doesn't concern us now. I've had to put this through--a tremendous
thing for Greenstream, a lasting benefit--entirely by myself. I will have
to guarantee a wicked profit outside; I stand alone to lose a big sum.
I'll give you ten dollars for the options."
Gordon rose. "I'll see the railroad people myself," he observed; "and find
out what I can do there."
"Hold on," Simmons waved him back to his chair. "If there's too much talk
the thing will get out. You know these thick skulls around here--at the
whisper of transportation you couldn't cut a sapling with a gold axe. It
took managing to interest the Tennessee and Northern; they are going
through to Buffalo; a Greenstream branch is only a side issue to them." He
paused, thinking. "There's no good," he resumed, "in you and me getting
into each other. The best thing we can do is to control all the good
stuff, agree on a price, and divide the take."
Gordon carefully considered this new proposal. It seemed to him palpably
fair. "All the papers would have to be made together," he added; "what's
for one's for the other."
Now that the deal was fully exposed Valentine Simmons was impatient of
small precautions. "Can't you see how the plan lays?" he demanded
irritably. "We'll draw up a partnership. Don't get full and talk," he
added discontentedly. It was evident that he keenly resented the absence
of Pompey Hollidew from the transaction.
"A thing like this," he informed the other, "ain't put through in a week.
It will be two or three years yet before the company will be ready for
construction."
Minor details were rehearsed, concluded. Two weeks later Gordon signed an
agreement of partnership with Valentine Simmons to purchase collectively
such timber options as were deemed desirable, and to merchandise their
interests at a uniform price to the railroad company concerned.