“I’ve been from headquarters three days,” Bob explained.

“I see.  Well, he sent you this message:  ’Tell Bob to go ahead.  I can take care of myself.’”

“Bully for dad!” cried Bob, greatly heartened.

“He told me he did not want to advise you, but that in the old days when a fight was on, the spectators were supposed to do their own dodging.”

“I’d about come to that conclusion,” said Bob, “but it surely does me good to feel that father’s behind me in it.”

“My trip in ’79—­or whenever it was—­was exactly on this same muss-up.”  Mr. Taylor went on:  “Your father owned this timber land then, and wanted to borrow money on it.  At the time a rascally partner was trying to ruin him; and, in order to prevent his getting this money, which would save him, this partner instigated investigations and succeeded temporarily in clouding the title.  Naturally the banks declined to lend money on doubtful titles; which was all this partner wanted.[A] Perhaps you know all this?”

Bob shook his head.  “I was a little too young to know anything of business.”

“Your father sent me out to straighten things.  The whole matter was involved in endless red tape, obscured in every ingenious way possible.  Although there proved to be nothing to the affair, to prove that fact took time, and time was what your father’s partner was after.  As a matter of fact, he failed; but that was not the result of miscalculation.  Now I strongly suspect that your friend Baker, or his lawyers, have dug up a lot of this old evidence on the records and are going to use it to annoy us.  There is nothing more in it how than there was at the beginning, but it’s colourable enough to start a noisy suit on, and that’s all these fellows are after.”

“But if it was decided once, how can they bring it up again?” Bob objected.

“It was never brought to court.  When the delay had been gained—­or rather, when I unravelled the whole matter—­it was dropped.”

“I see,” said Bob.  “Then the titles are all right?”

“Every bit of that tract is as good as gold,” said Taylor impressively.  “Your father bought only from men who had taken up land with their own money.  He paid as high as fifteen or sixteen hundred dollars for claims where by straight ‘colonizing’ he could have had them for three or four hundred.”

“I’m glad to hear that,” said Bob.  “But are you sure you can handle this?”

“As for a suit, they can never win this in the world,” said Taylor.  “But that isn’t the question.  What they want is a chance for big headlines.”

“Well, can you head them off?”

“I’m going to try, after I look over the situation.  If I can’t head it off completely, I’ll at least be in a position to reply publicly at once.  It took me three months to dig this thing out, but it won’t take me half an hour to get it in the papers.”

“I should think they’d know that.”